


The Bear and the Children Fair

by Samirant



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Inspired by Snow White and Rose Red, Past Jaime/Other, fairytale AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:13:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 28,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28301409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Samirant/pseuds/Samirant
Summary: It is a tragedy, the story that ends with a cloak of pure white made crimson by the blood of a fallen knight.Rest assured - that is only where this story begins.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 310
Kudos: 234
Collections: JB Festive Festival Exchange 2020





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EryiScrye (SomberSecrets)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomberSecrets/gifts).



> My many thanks to Luthien for her top notch beta skills and FireSign for her help in brainstorming this story and then giving it the most frustratingly perfect name. And, as always, my <3 to Slips, Nire and FF for being amazing.

🍂🍁🍂🍁🍂

_It is a tragedy, the story that ends with a cloak of pure white made crimson by the blood of a fallen knight._

_Rest assured - that is only where this story begins._

I

There is a small, humble home set deep in the woods. It is nestled in a copse of trees heavy with foliage, their leaves shifting from vibrant green to warm reds and burnt oranges with the turning of the weather. It is near half a day’s walk to the village, exactly as the father of the home likes it, though one must not assume that he is a cold, distant man. Rather, his young children’s laughter often rends through the air, their shouts of joy in harmony with the wind-rustled grove.

He is sitting outside on the day their lives take a turn, much like the season, though he is unaware of the occasion. No, his attention is on the article in his left hand and the shaping tool in his right, squinting at his work in the dim light of the oncoming evening. There is little time for this avocation, the forming and polishing of wooden toys, a pastime he discovered as a child and rediscovered as a newly made father. 

What keeps his children fed is his skill with an axe, in cutting down wood for the villagers to keep them warm through the winter months. It is an honest, if tedious, living - not at all what he dreamed of as a boy, but he’s long since learned that not all dreams are what they appear to be. He’s long since learned that his children’s happiness is far more important.

Thinking of them, Jaime Lannister lifts his eyes toward his surroundings, a smile coming to his face at the sound of their lilting voices, the trampling through the thicket that tells of his children’s arrival. After the sound of them comes glimpses of their golden hair through the branches. 

First fully into sight is Myrcella, clutching a covered basket in one hand and pulling along her brother Tommen by the other, Tommen whose eyes are wide with excitement that multiplies threefold when he sees his father. 

“A stag, papa! I saw a stag! And a bear!” 

It’s lisped through missing front teeth and Jaime turns to his daughter, who exasperatedly repeats the words. “A stag and bear, papa, he’s been spinning the tale ever since I found him.”

“You _lost_ him?”

“I thought he was hiding so he could jump out at me again, but he’d gone to the other side of the hill instead,” Myrcella answers crossly. “A few minutes at most and then he came to me saying-”

“With antlers this big!” Tommen thrusts his arms alongside his face, wiggling his hands in the air.

“That! He’s cracked!” Myrcella decrees.

“Antlers that large would be quite majestic,” his father solemnly replies over Myrcella’s exclamation, trying to keep a straight face. He knows very well that stags rarely roam the lands close to where they live, that bears are already deeper into the words than they ever venture, and he’s all too aware of his son’s grand imagination. “It must have given you a fright.”

Tommen nods frantically, his green eyes seeming over large in his round face. “And then, and then it charged me, papa!”

“Oh my!”

“And then the bear, a _huge_ bear came and stopped it!” Moving into a hunched pose and dropping his childish voice into a growl, Tommen begins lumbering about, pantomiming a great battle. 

As Tommen roars and rears, Jaime leans toward his daughter and says, “I do believe you need to watch what bedtime stories you share with your brother when it is your turn.”

“I tell him of faeries and grumpkins, not beasts,” Myrcella replies and then giggles when Tommen’s antics send him tumbling to the ground. He looks to them with a betrayed expression on his face. 

“Your bravery is unmatched, to have witnessed all of that and come back to us without a scratch.” Jaime lifts him off the ground, swooping him in the air to induce a peal of laughter. “What would I do if I lost my son to a stag _or_ a bear? I would be inconsolable!”

Tommen’s arms and legs splay open in the air from where his father still holds him. “I’m fine, papa! See?” 

“Thank the Seven that you did not come back with a large bite” - the gnawing motion he makes at Tommen’s middle makes even Myrcella laugh - “taken right out of your hide.”

“It was a very bad stag, he might have done it,” Tommen says seriously. “But not the bear. The bear was very good and ran the stag off.” 

“Very good bear then,” Jaime jovially agrees. “Top notch of its brethren.”

Satisfied with the respect his father imparts on the mythical bear, Tommen dashes into their home so that Myrcella can open her basket and show the literal fruits of her labor for the afternoon: wild berries and plums, root stalk and persimmon.

“Bear or not, you worked very hard today. Thank you,” Jaime tells her with a kiss to the crown of her head as she grumbles under her breath. He chuckles when he parses out her protest. “I’ll speak to your brother about being more dutiful in helping you, though do try to keep an eye on him? It’s not safe for you to wander apart.”

“It was not that long,” Myrcella says. At her father’s stern look, she reluctantly nods and promises, “I’ll do better.”

Jaime hugs her tightly and then shoos her to go ahead of him into the cottage. “You do wonderfully already, we simply must both be more vigilant when it comes to Tommen. Who knows what he’ll come up with next?”

It was a question made in jest, but had Jaime noticed and gone to investigate the heavy rustling in the bushes in the distance, rustling that did not move in time with the gentle breeze of the evening, he would have found an answer all the sooner. 


	2. II

II

The weather grows colder and Jaime adapts as he must every year. He wakes, stirs the hearth to reawaken the fire, feeds his children and sits them in front of the books he haggled away from a traveling maester. Neither Myrcella or Tommen inherited his difficulties with jumping and frolicking letters, though both give the fogged windows and falling snow on the other side longing looks. That it melts as soon as it hits the forest floor makes no difference.

Trusting Myrcella to keep them on task, Jaime makes use of the small smithy outside their home to work with scrap metal and painstakingly attach it to the toys he’s readied to that point. Once he can count on the sunshine breaking through the clouds to keep him warm enough, he reluctantly puts aside his favored work and picks up his axe. He only stops at midday to have a meal with the children, then sets them loose to play, wistful that he cannot join.

It is on one such afternoon that he catches a noise between strikes at a tree trunk. At first he thinks it’s the high call of an unknown bird, wavering and air-rending in turns, but it comes louder, and closer, and more familiar.

It is Myrcella.

Dropping his axe, Jaime dashes through branches, taking no heed as they whip past his face, frantic as Myrcella’s panicked voice grows ever nearer. She and Tommen are there and leaping into his arms as soon as he comes into sight, and Jaime clings back to them both, his eyes scouring the surrounding trees, searching for the threat. There is none to be found, though it does little to calm his thundering heart. 

Myrcella is shaking in his embrace, but he finally sees that Tommen does not share his sister’s distress. He has, in fact, pulled away to hop in a circle around his father and sister, calling out, “It’s all right, Myrcella! The bear got him, we’re safe! Wasn’t it the _best_?”

His breath catching, Jaime kneels into the fallen leaves with his still trembling daughter before him. He can see it happening so clearly, as it’s happened time and again: Myrcella lost in daydreams and Tommen leaping out at her from behind, sending Jaime’s sweet daughter into a blind panic. Bowing his head, he waits several moments and then looks to his son when he feels calmer. “Tommen, did you give your sister a fright? We’ve discussed this.”

Tommen stops his buoyant skips to exclaim, “No, papa! There was a wolf, an awful wolf, but the bear-”

“Enough, Tommen,” Jaime says sharply and Tommen goes mute. “You cannot frighten your sister like this, I’ve asked you to practice kindness with her nerves, I do not know why you insist on frightening her at every opportunity-”

“There _was_ a wolf, papa. And a bear.”

Jaime stops short, because the words didn’t come from Tommen, who’s gone pale at the chastisement. Instead it is Myrcella and she takes a trembling breath and repeats it. “There was a wolf and a bear. Tommen’s telling the truth.”

Looking between them both, Jaime can’t keep a small scoff from escaping his mouth. “Come now, I can’t have the two of you plotting together to frighten me. I don’t stand a chance.”

“We’re not lying,” Myrcella assures him and it’s her adamant expression that finally convinces him. Not that there was a wolf, or a bear, but that they both _believe_ there was and Jaime sighs under his breath. “Papa, it really happened. First it was the wolf on the crest of a hill. It saw us and growled and it was horrible-”

“It had teeth like this,” Tommen interjects, crooking a pair of fingers over the front of his mouth, muffling the words that follow. “It was bigger than me and Myrcella both. I think it was a direwolf.”

“-but before it could come closer, a bear came charging from the woods behind us and chased it down. It was an awful clash, papa, but the bear, it- it protected us.”

“Myrcella,” Jaime says quietly.

“It did,” Myrcella pleads just as softly. “I don’t know what would have happened to us if the bear hadn’t been there.”

“Dinner,” Tommen muses aloud.

They both look at him and Tommen ducks his head in embarrassment and remembered guilt. Regretting that he chastised his son for a yarn spun between the two children, Jaime pulls Tommen under one arm and Myrcella with the other. It brings to mind long travels in the far past, where he’d tucked them under each arm in small inns and against lean-tos when even the remotest inns weren’t safe to patronise. 

He wants to tell them that wolves, especially direwolves, do not come this far south of the Wall, that it’s doubtful they exist north of it, in any case. It would do well to remind them that the lightly falling snow assures that bears are settling into caves for a long winter’s rest, not wandering about to fight imaginary wolves. 

But, he thinks, who is he to stifle what they meant in good fun?

Sighing loudly and dramatically, Jaime lightens his voice and says, “So I have not one, but two warriors on my hands. Shall I equip you with swords and armor from this time on? What if the bear has eaten the wolf, tail and all, and decides it is still hungry?”

Tommen giggles. “The bear won’t eat us, papa. It likes us.”

“Would like to have you in its tummy, more like,” Jaime says as he pats Tommen’s little belly and makes his son giggle more. 

“I’m very glad for the bear,” Myrcella says, still deeply entrenched in their lark. “If I were to see it again, I would like to thank it.”

“You would thank a bear,” Jaime replies archly. He rises and reaches out each hand for his children to take, his heart warmed when they do. “Would you present it in a letter or in a spoken poem? Can all bears read or just this one?”

“Papa,” Myrcella whines, tilting her head back to give him an irritated look. 

“I’m simply trying to help you plan it better,” Jaime teases her. “How would you address it? Dear Bear? My dearest bear? Dearest Ser Bear? Lady Bear? Do we know for certain which is more appropriate?”

“I think it’s a lady bear,” Tommen pipes up over Myrcella’s displeased _papaaaa_. “She’s a very good lady bear.”

“Ah, a fair lady bear!” Jaime exclaims. “Myrcella, make note of it.”

If she does, Myrcella doesn’t say, but she does pout for the entire trek back to where Jaime dropped his axe. Then both she and Tommen look at him with such hope that it is barely a hardship to set the axe aside so that he can join in their games for the rest of the day, games absent of wolves and stags and bears, even if said bears are fair and would never eat small children, as Tommen and Myrcella emphatically promise when Jaime tucks them into bed that night.


	3. III

III

Traveling to the village is a whole day’s affair. Jaime spends the very early morning strapping his haul of chopped wood into the wagon and coaxing the horse into a harness for the trip. Then he bundles a sleepy Tommen into the nook behind his seat, while Myrcella takes Jaime’s side, bright eyed and excited at the prospect of seeing new ware in the market. 

He has a handful of coin in his pocket and a few finished toys to sell in addition to what is in the cart; Jaime hopes that he’ll have enough to buy them each a trinket, though if he were to say so aloud, Myrcella would selflessly insist the unnecessity of it. Hearing her say such things is as bittersweet as it is confounding, much like when she sighs dreamily midway through their journey and says, “I do love the snow.”

Jaime pretends to check underneath the edge of her kerchief. “Odd, I thought that was Myrcella sitting there. Bit late for a faerie to hoist a changeling upon me, but I see no other explanation.”

Myrcella lightly bats at his hand and fixes upon him a playful glare. “I’m free to like the snow as much as I want. It’s beautiful.”

“It’s cold and wet and I’d like very much to be away from it,” Jaime counters. Myrcella clucks with dismay, but spends the remainder of their travel trying to convince him otherwise. 

When they arrive, the passage made shorter by their lively jesting, Jaime elicits a promise from both children to stay within sight and to answer at his first call, then sets them free. Myrcella goes to admire the ribbons displayed in one of the market stalls, while Tommen immediately meets children of an age with him and begins running up and down the lane.

Jaime makes his rounds of the few permanent stalls, starting with the baker who takes a large portion of his offers in exchange for flour and freshly made bread. After, he circles back around to wait for villagers who want to buy for themselves. They call out, “Jay! Wondering where you’d gotten to! I’ll take three bundles!” or two or four, some giving coin, but most trading for smoked meats and butter and sweet preserves. 

His supply depleted, Jaime heads back to the central trading post, the only one with four walls and a door, collecting his children along the way. Inside, he is greeted as he has been throughout the day, though the shopkeep adds, “Ella! Dominyck! My, you’re grown so since I’ve seen you last!”

Tommen puffs out his chest and Myrcella blushes prettily, not correcting the gentleman as Jaime has made sure they never will. He sends them to choose a small item each and reaches for his bag. “Garreth, I hope you weren’t japing when you asked me to bring more of these.”

Garreth’s eyes light up as Jaime brings out the three horses, two foxes and one cardinal that he’s quite pleased with - the amount of time he put into shaping each feather seemed foolishly earnest at the time, but he’s glad to see that Garreth lifts that one to inspect first. 

“Of course I wasn’t, Jay. My stars, look at this.” Garreth admires the bird for a moment more and then beams at Jaime. “You’ve gotten even better, I hadn’t thought it possible. Is this all you brought?”

“It’s but a hobby,” Jaime replies with a shrug. “I make more with what I bring for the village at large.”

Garreth shakes his head with a wide smile. “If you’d seen how they fought over your last set, you’d reconsider that. There was even someone passing through some time ago asking about them. With Sevenmas coming closer, it’s a fair wager they’ll sell within a day or two.”

Jaime forces a frown and nods as if thoughtful over it, trying his damnedest to disguise his pleasure over hearing such a compliment. “If I had but the time. Unfortunately, as it is…”

“Aye, I understand,” Garreth says. They barter for a few minutes; Garreth is a fair man and they soon come to agreement, one that includes a new fur-lined cap for Myrcella and a handsome set of wooden dice for Tommen. 

It is with high spirits that the little family takes leave of the village in the late afternoon, their cart lighter and stores greater, and Tommen soon takes to singing a song that a few of the other children taught him. He only recalls perhaps a third of the lyrics, sending Myrcella into a gale of laughter when he starts substituting them with words that hardly rhyme.

“You’ll never be a bard if you can’t recall the words,” Myrcella playfully taunts her little brother. “Who would pay for you to sing a song you can’t remember?”

“I only heard it today,” Tommen insists. “And I can come up with my own songs, you’ll see. About bears and stags and wolves and all sorts of things.”

Tommen’s enthusiasm catches and Myrcella joins him in coming up with a new song instead of teasing him further, to Jaime’s unspoken relief, and their journey continues on. They’ve reached the smaller, almost concealed trail that leads to their home just as the children try to find something that can match with _wolf_ and Myrcella is shrieking that _tough_ cannot possibly work and _Tommen, I can’t believe you need me to explain why_ when the horse nickers and skitters to a stop. 

Puzzled, Jaime flicks the reins once, twice, thrice, to no avail. “Laurel,” he calls out. “On with it!”

Instead of moving forward, the horse canters back, buckling the joint between its harness and the cart. There is an almost tangible change in the air and Myrcella and Tommen’s warbled song dies with it. In the new silence, empty of children singing or the steady turn of wheels and the clomping of horse hooves, Jaime feels a chill run down the center of his back and a shaking sensation form in the middle of his chest.

No. Not just his chest. It is a growl, coming unseen from the woods around them, a low and dark snarl, one that he heard as a child and thought he never would again.

“Laurel,” Jaime says harshly. He flicks his wrists again, trying to remain calm, trying to convince himself that his mind is playing tricks on him. “On, girl.”

The horse takes heed and begins moving forward and Jaime feels his children draw closer to his side and whisper unintelligibly to one another. 

Then the horse stops again and Jaime does not have to wonder why and cannot pretend he does not see what he sees. His ears and mind did not deceive him, though he remains desperate for that to have been the case. Before them, appearing from between trees as if from out of nowhere, as if it has manifested out of thin air, is a beast that has no right to exist, at least not in their vicinity. But it’s wild mane and slinking shape are unmistakable, its protracting claws and snapping teeth terrifying to recognize. 

Jaime blindly reaches to his left hip for a sword that isn’t there and curses himself for the reflex he cannot unlearn, though it would have given them their only fighting chance of surviving the undeniable threat, for there is a lion in the middle of the path to their home. 

_A_ _damned lion_. 


	4. IV

IV

There is little to be done. 

The battles of the past are long over and Jaime has no legion of men at his back, ready to raise banners to protect all that he holds most dear. No blade, no shield, _he_ is the only shield for two children who have already lost one home because of him and now stand to lose their lives because he alone is not enough. 

He has scant time to push a protesting Myrcella and Tommen behind him, to squeeze them into the nook where Tommen had slept hours before. His mind is racing - _jump to get the lion’s attention, send Laurel galloping to give the children distance and time, hope that they don’t see what comes next -_

All the while, the lion prowls forward, its horrific maw widening to show piercing teeth, growling viciously with intent. It moves leisurely, as if savoring the oncoming struggle, but Jaime can see where its muscles tense as it readies to leap, and then…

_And then._

Jaime is bracing himself on the edge of the cart when a monstrous figure flies from the forest opposite where the lion appeared. It lands with a massive blow to the lion’s side, bewildering the beast and Jaime both. Though the newly brawling pair are a distance away, Jaime falls back into his seat as if shoved into place. 

He scrambles for the reins, his eyes fastened to the clash between the lion and the bear - yes, a bear, _a bear_ , with slashing claws of its own and a bone-shaking roar - and it’s a wonder that the horse hears him over the brutal sound of massive beasts colliding with no thought to the fragile man and children so nearby, but hear him the horse does and it is a risk, a horrible risk, but he screams for the horse to _go_ and it does.

They fly past as the lion raises rampant and the bear answers with a ferocious swipe to its middle, and there is blood and the flash of furious teeth and then they see no more, they are making their escape and Jaime cannot look back, for he fears what he will see if he does. He can hear the heavily muscled bodies continue to collide and grapple even after they have rounded a corner that brings his family closer to home, but Jaime dares not slow and he yells incomprehensibly when he feels Myrcella and Tommen rise from their hiding spot behind him. 

The children yell back at him as they arrive in the copse of trees directly around the home, nothing he can make sense of in his haste to seek safety. He pushes them to the house and hurriedly sets the horse to run loose and then hollers again when he sees that Myrcella and Tommen have stopped in place, their eyes directed to where the unseen fighting surely continues.

“Inside!” Jaime roars and they both jump at his direction, letting him bundle them into shelter. They have started arguing again, nonsensical objections that he ignores and then shields them within a small closet with a brusque, “Stay there!” 

Next he goes to his knees and feverishly scratches at a slat of wood in the floor, one with no visible difference from the others, but one that still comes up with a creak when he wrenches it up with his fingernails. Within is a wrapped weapon, its covering dusty from long time spent underfoot as a family moves to and fro from above. He frees it from its bindings and then takes the sword in hand and lifts his eyes to the door, to the paltry slab of wood that will do little to stop a lion or a bear if they choose to pursue easier pickings. 

But he will try. He will always try. So he stands at the ready, his breath coming in rapid bursts, the sword foreign and familiar in his grasp, his every battle-honed sense focusing on preparing for what could come next, using the time to plan out a better defense, a possible attack. 

He waits. 

He waits. 

He waits. 


	5. V

V

“Papa?”

His breath has evened out, has been for quite some time. Jaime is afraid to trust that the worst will not come to pass; he is still wary of the undisturbed barrier between them and the forest, of the familiar birdsong in the trees and the softly answering wind. He listens intently and closes his eyes, bringing to mind the thin layer of stubborn snow and ice that clings to the ground, knowing he’d hear it crack and shatter in warning under heavy paws and that has yet to happen.

It may not happen. They might be safe. There is no way to know for certain just yet. 

Still, he does not turn when the door behind him scrapes open and Myrcella quietly repeats her call for him. Instead, he allows himself to drop the sword to his side, instructs his muscles to release and lets out an exhausted breath. The sight of his repose is enough for Myrcella and Tommen to draw close and embrace his free side, their heads at his midchest at most and Jaime grasps at them both, pressing desperately grateful kisses to their golden crowns.

When he pulls up, they lift their faces to him, their matching green eyes round and guileless. 

“There was a bear,” he says in disbelief.

“There was a bear,” Myrcella earnestly replies. 

Jaime feels his knees shake as it becomes clear: Tommen’s stories and games, real and incontrovertibly true. His children had been in danger and he hadn’t even known.

He must either act or he will drop to the ground and not come up for hours, so Jaime pulls the sword belt that he’d thrown aside with the wrappings and cinches it into place. The sword follows into the sheath, its weight familiar despite the years it remained hidden away. “Stay here,” he tells them both and feels them chase after when he goes to the door. “I said-”

“We can go, it’ll be all right!” Tommen insists. 

“You cannot possibly know that,” Jaime disagrees. “I’m only going to the cart to retrieve what we brought back and to see if I can find the horse. _Do not follow me._ ”

They do not listen. 

“It’ll be faster if we help,” Myrcella gently informs him, taking a parcel from his hands and then passing it to Tommen. Her eyes seem wiser and older than her years and Jaime abhors that she can likely see the fear he cannot conceal. “I think Tommen is right and we are safe now. But Papa...”

Jaime pauses his careful study of the surrounding woods. If he had not seen the violent clash for himself, he’d think that nothing had taken place in the forest that day at all. Even Laurel’s returned from wherever she sought shelter and is grazing nearby, utterly unconcerned.

Myrcella’s anxious tone is obvious, however, and he tears his eyes away from the landscape to turn to her. “What is it?”

“I think it was hurt this time,” she says, looking worried and fearful. “Truly hurt.”

He does not wish to care. He wants for the beasts to have bestowed mortal blows on one another, their bones to be found after the heavier snows come and melt away. He does not wish to care, but after he has emptied the cart and made the children swear they will stay within the cottage, Jaime hauls up into the horse’s saddle and sets off to see for himself. 

Remaining vigilant, and counting on the horse’s senses to give him first warning as it did before, Jaime retraces their journey. The encounter took only seconds - and possibly years - from his life and it occurred far closer to their homestead than he is comfortable to realize and there is still enough daylight to see the large lump of fur in the middle of the trail when he rounds the last turn. 

The large form is dark and thick, however, not tawny or lithe, and the horse beneath him remains relaxed, so Jaime ventures forward.

It could be sleeping if not for the jerking breaths that make its fur ripple in the dwindling sunlight and Jaime keeps a wide berth, examining the bear from every angle until he has no choice but to get closer or go home entirely and let it shamble off once it has recovered. 

For it will recover, he suspects. There are long gashes from sharp claws down its meaty shoulder and foreleg, the only injury he can surmise; no dangling entrails or bones piercing through its hide. The beast is merely resting after a hard won fight because, indeed, it did win; Jaime can now see the unmoving hind legs and tail of the lion halfway between the trees where it attempted to drag itself away. 

And, as he watches, vines emerge from the ground, interlace over the lion’s lifeless body and pull it under until it is completely gone and nought remains but thicket. 

Jaime stares. He stares until his eyes begin to sting from dryness and he can recapture his breath. The horse whinnies and he starts and looks to the bear, which opens its eyes to peer up at him in exhaustion and then closes them as it drops its head back down. The sunlight has continued to fade, but the movement makes its black fur glimmer with a blue sheen he’s seen in the wings of ravens just as dark. 

He waits for vines to retrieve the bear, too, but none come. 

He waits long minutes and nothing happens.

Dropping down to a crouch, Jaime says, “The earth is not ready to take you yet, it appears.”

The bear grunts in an emulation of understanding, perhaps annoyance if Jaime’s completely taken loss of his senses. 

“If the earth will not, it seems I must,” Jaime continues with a reluctant sigh. He is speaking to a bear as if it understands him. _A bear._ “My children will never forgive me if I leave you here and I cannot lie to them, not in this. You are free to follow me or leave to parts unknown if that satisfies you - in truth, I’d prefer that, but the invitation is there. I’ve no bed for you, but perhaps Laurel can make space in her stall to share.”

The horse indicates no opinion on this, thank the Seven.

The bear, however, struggles to its feet, shakes the dust and clumps of mud from the road off itself and follows him home. 


	6. VI

VI

It proves impossible to keep Tommen from the bear. 

The earth persists in refusing to take the beast as it did the lion - and likely the stag and wolf, but Jaime doesn’t wish to think too closely on that - and so every morning, Tommen darts to the stable to check on their new companion. Jaime arrives too late the first time Tommen bravely climbs over the rails to gleefully stroke his hands through mounds of fur; Jaime’s heart jumps to his throat and his hand to the sword hilt at his side, all of it for nothing when the bear merely grumbles lightly and allows Tommen’s petting. 

Myrcella, having watched from a distance, takes that as encouragement to act as nursemaid and cleans the bear’s wounds, receiving a similarly benign acknowledgement. 

An outsider would call him a fool and tell him that it is a waste to tenderly revive an animal that could provide good meat and a warm fur for the winter, but Jaime cannot raise his weapon in attack. The bear has done too much for his family already and to kill it feels as if it would offend the gods or whatever trickster spirits that are running wild in the forest around them. 

It is also not something he wants the children to see from him, his talent for slaughter and bloodshed when the time calls for it. Tommen asks enough questions about the sword - _Where did it come from? Have you always had it? Can I hold it?_ \- and Jaime will admit he’s used the bear as a distraction to keep from answering. Myrcella asks no questions, but regards the weapon warily. There is little ceremony in his decision to put the sword back in its hiding place, though he decides to keep a less ostentatious dagger at his side at all times. Just in case. 

More snow falls and finally begins to stick, making his daily tasks slower and harder to complete. He’ll need to make another trip to the village before Sevenmas in order to fully prepare for the deepest throes of winter, two if possible, so he continues despite the temptation to stay within their warm, cozy home. The children must sense his weariness, or else are still rattled from their encounters with the bear’s challengers, and begin to bundle up to join him when he is working outdoors. 

One day the bear follows after them and Jaime cannot say that he is surprised that it continues to do so every day after that. 

He tracks the great, burly animal between swings of the axe and it remains the most ridiculous thing he’s ever seen: a bear that does not roar or snap even when small hands tug at its ears, that seems to _watch_ him without a hint of predatory interest in its gaze. Jaime tests it only once, heaving the axe in his palms and approaching the bear with a stomping step and determined air and all he gets in return is what can only be described as a disdainful sniff and then the bear ambles away. It feels far too idiotic to try such a thing again.

Myrcella’s delighted giggles draw his attention from loading the wagon with its latest supply, assuring Jaime that what he sees when he turns is not all that it appears. Another father - a father that hasn’t completely lost his wits - would panic at the sight of his son hanging lopsided from the bear’s clamped jaw, but Myrcella is riding on the bear’s back and victoriously shouting, “You’ll think twice now, won’t you!”

Tommen peeks upward and sulks when Jaime's amused face comes into view. He has to keep from laughing when the bear drops Tommen to the ground at his feet. Aside from a considerable amount of wet from the bear’s mouth, Tommen’s cloak is otherwise unblemished and the bear stays very still as Myrcella disembarks. 

“He was hiding behind a tree, ready to pounce out at me,” Myrcella says with immense relish. “But Blue got him first, now didn’t you?”

She pats the bear’s hide in thanks and Jaime tiredly asks, “Blue?”

“See?” Myrcella ruffles the fur and shows off the sheen of blue-black that catches in the right light, the same Jaime saw the first time he was near enough the bear to tempt its wrath and received none. “Blue.”

“I suppose I cannot contest that,” Jaime replies. 

They are inside after dinner that evening, usually a time where Jaime starts carving a new project, when Myrcella calls him over to the window. The frame is thick with collecting snow and she points into the distance, showing him where the bear is trudging a path just inside the tree line. 

It leaves a shallow trench in the snow, one that Jaime follows as far as he can from his perspective, and he suspects it goes entirely around their home. 

“I have half a mind to believe,” he tentatively begins, “that your dear bear is keeping watch.”

“Blue,” Myrcella says fondly - and then her expression shifts with fretfulness. “He should know to go to the stable by now. It’s much too cold to stay out.”

“Blue is free to do as Blue likes,” Jaime replies. If it isn’t for the way the bear plods out of sight to the left and comes back around from the right after a few minutes, Jaime would wonder if Blue was planning to finally depart their company. He finds there is a frown on his face as he contemplates it. 

“Papa?”

Myrcella’s wheedling tone is hardly subtle. Jaime gives her a sidelong look, to lessen the potency of her beseeching gaze. “Yes?”

“If Blue has decided to be on guard for us against other beasts and _if_ there’s no change in the weather…”

Jaime says her name in warning.

Myrcella turns a deaf ear to it. “What is the difference if Blue is outside or in?”

“In the stable, you mean,” Jaime retorts. 

“Or…” Myrcella motions to the space before their hearth. Jaime makes the mistake of following the motion and then looking back at her face, to find her blinking wide, innocent eyes at him. 

Jaime chuckles and says, “No.”

“It is a kindness,” Myrcella insists. 

“No,” Jaime repeats. 

“Blue is harmless to us! And it is so very cold out there!”

“No, Myrcella, and that is that.”

His daughter scowls and, to Jaime’s chagrin, Tommen chooses that moment to ask what they are discussing. The triumphant change in Myrcella’s countenance at remembering she has an ally decides it and Jaime knows it is over even before it becomes two very assertive Lannisters against one. 

They invite the bear inside. 

Myrcella and Tommen take great delight in dusting off the snow from Blue’s fur, leaving melting puddles across the stone before the hearth. They share an old brush to glide through the fur once it’s dry and then muss their work by gamboling with the animal until they have exhausted themselves. 

Jaime remains near, ever the ready with the dagger at his side. It is unnecessary, he knows it, he knew it from the moment Blue followed him back to the cottage on the day of the third attack. It is enough that once the children are nodding off against the bear’s flank, Jaime carries them to bed, leaves the dagger near the stove and takes the newly emptied space along Blue’s side.

It is a warm spot, with the soft fur behind him, lifting him with every inhalation of the unprotesting bear. Jaime laces his hands together and crosses his legs and finally lets ease overtake him, for if the gods are playing games, he is coming out the victor this time around. Such a thing is rare enough that he must allow himself to enjoy it.

“You are a very odd bear, do you know?” he asks and gets no answer. Of course he doesn’t, he’s speaking to a bear. “A terrible one, in fact. Nature has given you leave to be a great, ghastly beast and instead here you lie, spread out before my hearth like a rug.”

There is a chuffing noise to his left, where Blue is resting its head on crossed paws, and the resulting shake of the burly body behind Jaime makes him chuckle in return. 

“I do not know how to thank you,” Jaime wonders aloud. “Or if you’d recognize it as such, if you even know what you have done for us. I know not what mysteries are afoot in these woods, but I know that you have saved my children, time and again. I am not… I am not used to having another protecting them as I have sought to do.”

He turns quiet, the humorous start of his playful speculation falling to the wayside. It is not a matter he dedicates time to considering, it is a matter he has tried to leave in the past, though one day he’ll have to confess it to Myrcella and Tommen, when they can understand and perhaps forgive him for it. 

“I did it all for them, you see,” Jaime tells the bear and stares at the flames in the hearth, shutting his eyes when they begin to burn in response. “If I had to do it again, I would. Gods forgive me, I would.”

Blue breathes behind him, in and out, slowly and somehow reassuring. 

He cannot explain why he must, but Jaime takes it as impetus to tell his tale at last. 


	7. VII

VII

“For much of my life, there was one thing I knew that was certain and true,” Jaime begins, “and that was that I loved the Queen.”

Jaime stops and inwardly contemplates it, feels the roiling in his stomach. It is true no longer, but he remembers when it was, how it consumed him. Unsettled, he stands to retrieve his shaping tools and the rudimentary figure he’d started the day before. It helps to keep his hands busy when he rests against the bear again and continues his story. 

“She was not queen then. I was the eldest son, set to inherit the lordship of the Westerlands, and she was promised to the King. It made no difference. I loved her and she loved me, beyond reason or sense. I begged her to run away with me when we came of age, but the opportunity never arose, as far as she claimed. 

“We were forced to hatch a plot to maintain our connection. I renounced my birthright and followed her to King’s Landing when they married and publically swore myself to the King’s protection. In private, I swore myself to her every happiness.

“My brother stayed in the Westerlands, set to inherit in my stead and I became a knight in the Kingsguard. I protected that bumbling fool of a king, but I was there for her. Our love was as it always was: secret, hidden in the shadows, known to none but us. I gave her everything I had and sired each of her children.”

The motions of his hands slow as the memories emerge, of each of their small, bundled bodies in the glowing Queen’s arms. Joffrey, Myrcella, Tommen. Born of him and the Queen both, but never truly his. He hastens his work to proceed beyond the remembered pain that he could not hold them, too. 

“She did not allow me close to them, she said it was too much of a risk, no matter that we’d done far riskier things to that point. I could only watch from a distance as she doted the most on Joffrey. He grew spoiled and prone to vicious outbursts when he did not get his way. No one called him to task for it, especially not the Queen. In truth, I saw how her coddling made him even worse. The first and only time I tried to discuss it with her, she turned on me in such a similar temper, I dared not attempt it again.

“Myrcella and Tommen were still very small when the King called upon my father for assistance in supplementing the treasury. We set out across the land to retrieve what he offered; it was a full retinue of knights and maids and servants and, though it had been years since I’d been home, I was glad for it. I was glad for the opportunity to see my brother again, if not my father.

“We arrived and there was already a contingent of men from the south to meet us. That was when I learned that Myrcella, recently turned a mere three namedays, was being promised in betrothal to some nameless, wealthy lord who sought a deal with the King. I was certain the Queen would fight this tooth and nail, to prevent her daughter’s unhappiness as she had herself experienced, but she did not say a word. It was hardly the first sign that she was not the person I thought her to be, but it was the first I could not ignore.”

The figure in his hands becomes clearer and Jaime sighs quietly upon revealing a set of four paws and a sleek flank. 

“I diverted myself by keeping with my brother, Tyrion. He had grown in age, if not in stature. We spent an evening together, reacquainting ourselves and trading stories. He was fiendishly clever and had grown up well despite being left to our father’s care. I could see that, apart from every other questionable decision, I’d made the right one to leave him heir, he was well-suited to the role. He would have led the Westerlands wisely. He would have…”

It sticks in his throat, the grief that has not fully healed, that he suspects never will. Jaime swallows to clear away the lump and says, “The next morning, he was found dead in his bedchamber. No one could explain how it happened, no one pretended to try, least of all the Queen. The sun hadn't even set when she offered Tommen to my father as a replacement heir, to strengthen the ties between the Crown and the Westerlands. Tommen was to be raised under her hand and then taken back to the Westerlands when he was of age to learn how to govern. My brother wasn’t yet in the ground and he was replaced. I think...”

His hands freeze and he lifts his face to take a gulp of air to steady himself. 

“I know that it was her. There was no other explanation that a young man, hale and hearty the evening prior, was now dead. If it wasn’t by her hands directly, I knew in my bones that it was by her machinations that my brother was gone and in result Tommen destined to be lord of a land he did not know.

“The Queen meant it as a balm, a prize for me. She said as much when I asked if she was certain about eventually sending Tommen away. I should be glad, she insisted, that my son would inherit what I gave up. No sorrow, no regret for poor Tyrion.

“I joined the retinue in returning to King’s Landing. I had no choice in the matter. I came to recognize many of my choices over the years had never been mine at all, but hers. The pain and guilt that coursed through me burned away any love I had remaining for the Queen. It was worse to understand that my actions had led to an overindulged, loathsome firstborn, that Myrcella and Tommen were as trapped as I was in an unhappy future.

“Our escape came from an unlikely source. We were on the Goldroad when a band of mercenaries set upon us. They were dressed as common bandits, but I recognized them for what they truly were. In a blink of an eye, we were all fighting for our lives, knights and servants alike.

“I saw them attack the carriage where Myrcella and Tommen were kept with their nursemaids, saw those poor women struck down dead. They should have been protected, but the Queen was screaming for every knight to hear, ‘To the prince! To Joffrey!’ and that command took precedence.”

He nearly cuts his hand when he tightens his grip on the slope of the wooden animal’s back and forces himself to relax. The attack is designated to the past, Jaime reminds himself, and it is not sadness that he is filled with now, but rage.

“To the prince, the prince, the prince, she screamed it over and over until they were surrounded on every side by the Kingsguard. I was the furthest away, trapped between joining them or pursuing the men who had snatched Myrcella and Tommen from their dead keepers. At last, I shouted back at her, showed her the backs of the escaping men and saw her face. I will never forget it.”

There was no way to truly describe it, the sheer madness of her countenance, her fury when Jaime emphatically pointed after the others, the snarl that came to her mouth when he hesitated. 

“I saw in an instant that it was of no consequence to her. As long as Joffrey was safe, she would make do, make replacements, substitutes, and I would be the one to give them to her. There would be ransoms and negotiations and perhaps we would get them back, but I would forever know that Myrcella and Tommen were dispensable as long as she had Joffrey.”

“So I made a decision. I gave chase. I went after the children, her children. _My_ children.”

He’d ridden with a fervor he’d never known before, striking down one man, two, three as he found them. Tommen he recovered first, taking vicious pleasure in splitting open the man who had stolen him. He’d tucked his son against his side and kept on, chasing the others deep into the woods, killing without mercy whenever he came upon another, until there was only one, the one who held a screaming, sobbing Myrcella. At seeing Jaime, she bit at the man’s hand and wiggled out of his grasp, giving Jaime time to set Tommen aside at a safe distance, to enact his final punishment.

“The last one was terrified to face me,” Jaime says with dark gratification. “I was covered in the blood of his compatriots. He knew he didn’t stand a chance, but he was fool enough to fight me anyway. In our struggle, we fell over an embankment and rolled to the river below. He landed first and struck his head against a rock. I nevertheless held him under the water to be certain and then it was over. All of it.”

The river had swirled around his calves, an inviting pull when he released the man. He watched the water take the body out and then under, disappearing into the deepest rushes. 

“It occurred to me that it could have easily been my body, lost to the force of the water,” Jaime says slowly, quietly. The fire hisses before him, the bear rumbles behind. “It came clear to me that to return to the Queen would be no better. I looked up and saw my bloodied cloak. It had tangled in the branches and torn off during my fall, but past it, I saw Myrcella looking down at me from edge and thought _I cannot get my brother back, but I can save them still, and myself_.

“Tommen would not have to suffer being raised by my father. Myrcella would not be used as an instrument to barter between uncaring men. I would be free. It was decided from one moment to the next. I doffed my armor and hid it in a bag, covered the hilt of my sword, followed the path back to the men I’d cut down and stole their coin, their goods, their cloaks and two horses. To be safe, I tossed two more of them into the river to hide my success in defeating them. Then I loaded one horse with all I had gathered, secured Myrcella and Tommen with me on the other and we fled.

“When I had the opportunity, I cut the hair from my head and into the water it went. We kept to back trails and away from other travelers for as long as I was able. When they could not be avoided, I dulled my voice to sound like a commoner and found kindness in others: a man who gave me his spare axe, his wife who showed me how to better swaddle the children when I spun a tale of being newly widowed. There was a smith who allowed us to stay in his workshop for a few weeks and asked no questions when I asked if I could melt down some armor I’d found. Instead, he taught me how to use the tools and I’ve increased those skills since.

“One day, we ventured into these woods and discovered an old woman walking through. She greeted us as if we were expected. ‘There you are’, she said, as if we were _late_ , then she invited us to this very cottage. When the villagers asked who we were, the old woman claimed us as her own, saying I was her son, returned from a far off land, that Myrcella and Tommen were her grandchildren and introduced them by different names.”

Jaime laughs to himself, ever awestruck by how neatly it all unfolded. “I believe she was quite mad - in a gentle way. On occasion, I’d find her muttering to herself in the bushes and would have to guide her back inside. 

“Oh, but she loved Myrcella and Tommen. They barely remember her, she passed a year or so after we got here. If I regret anything, it is that they could not know her better. Nan, she told us to call her. She was exactly what we needed and made sure everyone knew that this was our home from then on. So here we have stayed.”

There is a lion in his hands.

He peers at it, carefully regarding the wild mane he’s carved free from the wood, the open mouth set in a too-recognizable snarl, its nascent eyes narrowed in threat. If he commits the time, he knows he can eke out individual claws, but he does not have to. He does not wish to. 

Jaime moves forward to toss the lion into the fire, watches as it disappears into the flames, the surrounding embers snapping in hunger as the figure is blackened and consumed. 

Grimly satisfied, Jaime settles back against the bear, which has gone quite still apart from even breaths. Perhaps the story put Blue to sleep, he muses to himself. 

Nevertheless, he says aloud, “One day I shall have to tell them, I know this. I cannot hide the truth forever, but for now I can give them their childhood, I can give them their happiness as long as I am able. That is all I’ll ever want and I hope they’ll understand it. Only time will tell.”

Exhaustion seeps in and there stands no reason to fight it, so Jaime tucks back further against the bear, closes his eyes and falls asleep. 


	8. VIII

VIII

It becomes more than a passing worry, the amount of snow that falls overnight. Jaime observes it from the window and divulges nothing to the children, but when Blue joins him outside, he idly remarks, “The weather isn’t on my side. Next time we go to the village, I’ll either go with too little or arrive too late. Impossible decision.”

Whether the bear can parse his words or not, Jaime has a companion when he sets out and makes the damnedest of discoveries during his first break to sharpen the axe blade. The trunk he’s been fighting against will need another hour’s work before it topples over and he is regarding it with trepidation when Blue draws nearer to it. 

Then, without a by-your-leave, the bear hauls up onto its hind legs, presses its front paws to the trunk and _pushes._

Jaime watches it all, his mouth hanging open as the wood at the base splits and splinters, as the massive tree falls to the ground with a significant crash that makes the ground beneath him thunder in reply. 

Blue looks back at him, a somehow expectant look on its furry face, and Jaime cheerfully announces, “Well, I suppose that’s one way to do it.”

It invigorates him, the prospect of swift results and he begins to strike at another tree, with Blue stepping up when it sees fit, gently nudging Jaime aside to fell the second tree of the day. There are five on the ground at the time Jaime decides to cut them down to size and he is less astonished, but nonetheless grateful, when Blue clamps a log between its sharp teeth and deposits it in the nearby cart. 

In the space of one day, the two of them manage to get done what would normally take Jaime a week. 

Laughing wondrously, Jaime leads the bear home, not a single protest on his lips when Blue takes the space before the fire. Myrcella and Tommen fall upon their dear bear, once again clearing away the snow and playing until they fall into a knackered heap. 

The next day is the same, and the next after that. Soon, Jaime has enough stored that will provide enough supply for innumerable months and he doesn’t know which god he has to thank for it, but surely one will come to call on what they are due, sooner or later. 

He tells the children one evening that they will make a trip to the village the following morning, as long as the weather holds, so they must go early to bed. Blue aids him by going out the door, reducing any diversions, so Tommen sleepily agrees and cuddles under his blanket while Myrcella washes up.

She’s climbing into her bed across from Tommen’s, her brother snoring softly, when she pauses and asks, “Papa?”

Assuming she means to request a specific Sevenmas gift, or perhaps to share a confidence on what she plans to give Tommen, Jaime gives her a sly grin and replies, “Yes, what is it?”

“I… Papa, I-” she falters and Jaime’s grin fades at her worried tone. It vanishes entirely when she finishes with, “I heard you the other night.”

He’s taken to saying many things to Blue when he believes it is only the silent bear listening, but Jaime knows better. He knows, without a doubt, of what Myrcella is speaking. 

“Did you?” he asks, his voice reedy.

Myrcella solemnly nods and Jaime places the candle in his hand on the table between the beds and kneels before his daughter, the stone cold and unforgiving against his knees. She takes his hands in hers when he offers them and it soothes him enough to inhale deeply and say, “I did not mean for you to hear that for quite some time.”

“I know,” Myrcella says back. “But Papa… I remember the castle. I think I always have.”

Dumbstruck, Jaime tightens his grip on hers. 

“I remember a bed with curtains. Red ones. And gardens? I got lost in one once, I think.”

“Yes, you did,” Jaime gruffly replies. Her mother had been furious that she’d returned with her dress torn and dirty and he hopes she does not recall that part of the day. 

Myrcella takes a hitching breath and Jaime wants to weep with it. 

“You had a sword. Not from the other day, but from before. I remember you with a sword and a man and the river.” Tears well in Myrcella’s eyes, making them shine. “I know what you did for us.”

“I took you from your home, from your mother,” Jaime confesses in abject misery. He lifts Myrcella’s hands and presses them to his brow. “I am so sorry, Myrcella, but I did what I thought was necessary.”

“I know, Papa, I know.” She pulls at his hands, not to pull away, but to bring him close and she wraps her arms around his neck. “I am thankful.”

“Myrcella-”

“It’s more than the bed or the gardens. I remember being scared, Papa. All the time. Scared of the people always surrounding us, of my mother’s temper and- and of Joffrey. He frightened me most of all. I believe… I believe that is why I hate being pounced at. He liked to do it, but not in fun, as Tommen does. He laughed at me when I cried.”

Jaime hugs her back just as fiercely when she says, “I remember feeling safe with you, when it was just you and me and Tommen. It is the truth that I’m glad for it, for what we have now.”

“I provide so little in comparison to what you would have there, if I had not taken you,” Jaime protests.

“If I heard you right, I might have been somewhere else by now, away from everyone I knew,” Myrcella passionately replies. “I don’t want to be betrothed to anyone, I’m ten!”

Jaime’s body shakes with helpless laughter and Myrcella eases away to clasp his face between her small, gentle hands. “Papa, I am not angry or sad. What is a stuffy old castle to being here, free to do as we like?”

“You are too good.” Jaime’s throat has gone so hoarse, the words struggle to come out. 

“One day... one day, I think I’d like to go on an adventure, one that _I_ choose. I don’t think princesses get to do that.” Myrcella kisses Jaime’s forehead, much as he does when they need to settle down. “Don’t be afraid that I know the truth. I am happy here.”

“Too good,” Jaime repeats, and kisses her forehead in return. 

Myrcella releases him to climb under her blankets, nestling into the pillow with a yawn. There’s a gentle smile on her face that makes Jaime’s heart swell, to threaten to burst when she adds, “This is home. You, Tommen and Blue, all of us together. I love each of you very dearly.”

Tommen rouses at the mention of his name and sleepily croons, “I love Blue, too.”

“Yes,” Jaime says breathlessly, covering his mouth to hide his relieved and unbelievably thankful smile. “I love all of you more than I can say. Even Blue.”

It happens immediately after. A roar, unlike anything they’ve heard before and Jaime’s head whips in the direction it comes from. Myrcella and Tommen both pop up from their beds with identical gasps when the roar changes from a deep bay to an agonized howl of pain. 

Jaime alone is still in his boots and he races out the door when his children cry out for Blue’s safety. The darkness is all-encompassing, so he turns heel to light a torch from the fire, finds that Myrcella and Tommen are already shoving their feet into their boots, and he races ahead of them so to make sure they won’t find any untoward.

What he finds defies explanation. 

Blue is nowhere to be found, despite the fact that he finds the bear’s tracks and follows them easily enough to the treeline. No, what is preposterous, what is unbelievable even beyond Myrcella’s acknowledgement of the past and acceptance of the present, is that the prints _change_.

Jaime slows his pace as the tracks shift from paws and claws to something narrower, more human. He stops entirely when he finds the feet that made them, feet attached to pale, possibly freckled legs - it’s difficult to determine in the flickering light - and his eyes trace along the unclothed figure before him. The woman before him, collapsed and motionless in the otherwise undisturbed snow. 

“Blue! _Blue_!” Myrcella and Tommen’s desperate shouts come nearer and Jaime yells at them to keep their distance, adding an order for them to grab a blanket, a shirt, _something._ He crouches down to gather up the woman, her senselessness making her heavy in his arms and he keeps his back to Myrcella’s approach. At his instruction, Myrcella tosses a cloak over Jaime’s shoulder and all the while, Tommen continues to call Blue’s name, his voice thick with fright. 

Jaime’s just wrapped up the woman and hefted her into his arms when she stirs at Tommen’s frantic cries and fumbling in the snow. Her mouth, a pair of thick lips gone nearly purple from the cold, opens and he hears her mumble, “T’men… m’sorry.”

She falls unconscious again and says no more.


	9. IX

IX

“Where are you off to?”

Despite Jaime’s choice to delay their jaunt to the village, Myrcella and Tommen glance at him from where they stand by the door. Myrcella puts on her warmest cap, then assists her brother in fitting into his own. They are wrapped snugly in their cloaks and boots, an action Jaime missed in his vigil.

“To- Dominyck wants to search for Blue,” Myrcella says softly. Her eyes cut to the silent woman on the pallet in front of the fire, still unmoving and insensate after hours of rest. Myrcella delicately adds, “I won’t let him stray far. Dom wants to be sure Blue is all right.”

Beside her, Tommen nods silently, his face pinched with concern. Jaime sighs and tilts his head in recognition when Myrcella responds with a grim smile. They leave and Jaime looks back to their unanticipated guest.

Myrcella’s thinking matches Jaime’s, undoubtedly, never mind that it is a fantastical theory. The preceding weeks, however, have brought them stags and wolves and lions where they should not else transpire, vines from the earth that swallow them whole, in an instant - what is a bear that becomes a woman to that, Jaime wonders inwardly. 

He sits by her side, carving out another figure, a bear this time, another Blue. The only beastly part of Blue that remains, possibly. He waits and moves forward whenever the woman briefly, restlessly rouses; she blindly sips at the broth he puts to her mouth before she falls back under. All to do in between is to wait some more. 

The children come and go, Tommen made gloomy by their fruitless search and Myrcella deeply curious when she catches her father’s attention, though she is careful not to say anything aloud.

The day passes in tense silence and both fall asleep in the chairs on the other side of the pallet. Jaime’s body is in flux, caught between fatigue of being on guard nearly a day straight, and uncontrollable disquiet over what will come when the woman awakens at last. 

He gets his answer late in the evening and Jaime would wager that it has been a day, exactly to the minute, since they heard the roar in the woods. The woman’s eyes fully open for the first time and they glint in the firelight. 

Her eyes are blue. 

He probably should have expected that. 

His breath caught in his throat, Jaime approaches slowly until she can see him. Her gaze is soft, confused. She blinks several times, the firelight sparking anew each time she opens them. 

“My lady,” he says quietly, his accent purposefully roughened. “Are you well?”

“I…” Her attempt to speak is weak and raspy. In the hush of the room, the crackling fire feels louder in comparison. He watches as she swallows repeatedly, helps her sit up so she can take a sip of water. She’s wearing one of his tunics and the blanket in her lap covers all that the fabric doesn’t; it makes no difference, she looks down and then up at him, her skin flushing deeply.

“I did what I could, I hope you understand I meant no harm,” Jaime tells her. “Do you recall what happened?”

“I was” - a cough, another swallow, a voice that sounds as if it needs to shake dust free - “I was walking in the woods.”

“In the snow? At nightfall?”

The woman’s eyebrows draw together, her mouth works open and shut in similar consternation. She is all discombobulation, that much is clear. He presses the water into her hands and she takes several greedy gulps. 

“No. There was no snow,” she says after. Her gaze slips to the window behind Jaime and she blinks again, this time in obvious surprise. “Where am I?”

“In our home. I am Jay Hill and the two children sleeping there are mine, Ella and Dominyck. You don’t remember them?”

There is a brief hesitation and then the woman shakes her head. 

Jaime goes quiet, but his mind races. There is no reasonable explanation. Blue’s prints transposed into hers too perfectly, there has been no sign of the loyal beast since. He wonders… he wonders… is this still the bear? Is this the trick, turning a confused animal human, a jape from the gods to drive Jaime to madness? To break his children's hearts?

“I’m… my name is Brienne,” the woman tells him, her voice assured for the first time, dispelling his conjectures. “I come from the Stormlands, but we aren’t near there, are we?”

Jaime carefully answers, “No. You’ve come quite a long way, my lady.” 

He said it first out of politeness, but the cultured lilt in her voice is now unmistakable. She is of good stock, at least by birth if not in looks. The freckles he saw on her legs are also scattered across her face; he’d tried his best not to look at all the space in between when he dressed her. With a frame square like a man’s, a broad jaw and mouth filled with prominent teeth, she is no beauty. But when she speaks, he hears her highborn pedigree. 

She might be a wandering stranger who simply lost her way. Blue might be out there still, Jaime tells himself. And if so, Brienne is dangerous in a way the bear never was. She is more likely to recognize him out of anyone he’s met since their escape. 

It would be a kindness to himself and the children that she depart at first light, though he knows it to be impossible. She is too weak and he is not cruel if he can help it, not anymore. 

“Rest,” he encourages her, and she listens, falling back to the pallet in exhaustion. “We can speak of all else when you have regained your strength.”

“Thank you,” Brienne whispers. She sighs into a renewed slumber, her expression at long last serene in her repose. 

He sees it then, when she turns her face in her sleep and the firelight falls upon it, what he’d missed in his haste to cover her. 

Four healing claw marks, tenderly pink on her long neck, marks that disappear under the collar of his tunic and surely, _surely_ , etch a path down her arm. 


	10. X

X

Brienne is Blue. 

Brienne _was_ Blue. 

There is no getting around it, no rationalization, so accept it Jaime must. That Brienne is as stubborn in her convalescence as the bear was in, well, _anything_ , only confirms his acknowledgement of the truth. 

At daybreak, he implores her to rest and she responds by getting to wobbly feet. He prepares a bowl of porridge to bring to the pallet and turns to find that she is stumbling along, a concentrated grimace on her face that releases once she drops into a chair at their table. 

Myrcella, eyes wide and fascinated, soundlessly pushes a mug of tea toward her, which Brienne accepts with a softly spoken, “Thank you.”

“I’m Ella,” his daughter replies just as quietly.

“I’m Brienne.”

“Brienne,” Myrcella sounds it out, drops her head to one side and says it again. “Brienne.”

Across from them, Tommen stares listlessly at his bowl and lets out a tetchy whine when Myrcella less-than-subtly prods his side. 

“Say good morning, Dominyck,” Myrcella tells him pointedly. He manages to grumble a semblance of a greeting and Myrcella turns apologetically to Brienne. “I don’t think he slept well.”

Brienne answers with a small smile, sips her tea and hums in apparent understanding. Myrcella brightens, her mouth widening in a grin for no reason Jaime can see. 

“Do you… do you remember?” Myrcella asks with patent hope. 

Jaime cuts in before Myrcella can say too much or Brienne too little. “It seems Brienne got lost in the woods before we came upon her. She’s from the Stormlands-”

“Tarth,” Brienne says suddenly. 

He stops, startled, and looks askance in her direction.

“I’m from Tarth,” Brienne repeats with an air of relief. “How I came to be here is a mystery, but I know I’m from Tarth.”

“Oh.” Myrcella deflates before his eyes and she is quiet for the rest of breakfast. 

His daughter’s disappointment disorients the poor woman and Brienne volunteers nothing else as a result. When the food is gone, and the children departed, her attention turns to where her pale, freckled wrists jut out from the cuffs of his spare tunic and it seems _that_ is what embarrasses her most when she takes note of it. 

“I can find another, one better fitting,” Jaime offers, but Brienne shakes her head. 

“You’ve been very generous already.” She tucks her arms under the table. “May I ask…”

She trails off and Jaime prompts her with, “Where you are? What day it is?”

“Yes,” she answers sheepishly. 

He answers those questions and a few more, but nothing strikes at her as familiar. Telling her that she’s spent at least a month or two as a bear would likely not go over well, so he keeps that part to himself. 

“You remember nothing?” he asks, to be sure. 

“I’m from Tarth, but I don’t…” Her homely face furrows deeply. “I’m from there, but no longer. I don’t know how I know that.”

“And your family?”

A shadow passes over her expression, one Jaime immediately recognizes; it’s a pall that comes with remembered loss. “No. It is only me.”

“We are going,” Myrcella announces from her bedroom door. Tommen is spooling a length of wool around his neck, looking no more enthused since Blue disappeared. “I need to…. One more time. If that’s all right.”

“I understand,” Jaime replies. Myrcella stops to press a kiss to his cheek and nods to Brienne, then pulls her brother out the door. “Forgive them, they are not usually this abrupt. They lost a friend of late.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Brienne says with plain sincerity. “They seem very sweet.”

He knows she’s only being polite and huffs out a laugh. “They have not given much evidence of that this morning.”

“Regardless, it shows,” Brienne murmurs. She raises her shoulders in a vague shrug. “Just a feeling I get.”

Jaime peers at her for a moment longer and turns away when her cheeks flush in response. He gathers their empty bowls, informing her, “We were to make our way to the village yesterday and will probably go tomorrow, if the roads are passable. If you’d like-”

“Yes, of course,” Brienne hastily replies behind him. “Perhaps someone there can find me passage to Tarth, it will be as good a starting point as any.”

And there it is, the solution to his problem. It isn’t the offer he intended to make, but it will simplify matters to reduce their connection; if they are fortunate, they will become nothing but a hazy memory for her, a small family that kept her company for a day and then disappeared from her life. 

Yes. Yes, that is how it must be. 

“As you like,” he concedes as he turns to face her. The words continue, however, much to his own surprise. “I am concerned that you are still on the mend.”

Brienne casts her eyes away. “Then I should take the time to-”

“Rest?” Jaime suggests.

“-see what I am capable of,” Brienne finishes with a faint smile. “I cannot in good conscience intrude indefinitely.”

There is no way to tell her that she has always been welcome. She does not know, should not know. He can hear the children’s voices through the window, calling out for Blue. He wants to call them back. _She’s in here_ , he wants to say, _she’s in here and she won’t be here for much longer._

He did not expect it would hurt him to think of that as much as it does.

The cart is full to the brim with logs, and more besides in the stable, so Jaime sits on the chair by the fire and starts on another toy. Brienne gingerly moves between the table and chairs, then walks between the bedroom doors to the front of the cottage, gaining steadiness with every pass. 

She stops at the hearth on her dozenth trek and reaches out to the array of animals he has stashed there, the most he’s ever had at one time thanks to Blue’s assistance in freeing his time. Lifting the rendition of their lost friend into her hands, Brienne admires it quietly and then asks, “You made this?”

Jaime looks between the tools in his hands, back at her and raises an eyebrow. “I did.”

She takes it with the intended good humor and runs her fingers along the broad back. “You are very gifted.”

“It’s a hobby,” Jaime replies, used to disregarding it as such. 

“I have no talent for pretty things.” Brienne says it contemplatively and nods to herself in assured agreement. “Painting, drawing, sewing. Certainly not carving.”

“Didn’t take well to lessons?” It makes him smile to think of a smaller version of her, fighting with a spool of thread; Blue would have been an even funnier sight and his smile dims. 

“It seems not,” Brienne agrees. She finally takes the chair across from him. “I’m recalling more. Flashes. The sea. The smallfolk of Tarth, I think.”

“But you were not, I can tell. Smallfolk, that is.”

She shakes her head and looks flustered that she cannot detail more. Taking pity on her - and wanting to call his children in from wandering too far - he suggests getting some fresh air now that she’s not leaning on walls and chair backs to remain upright. He gathers up an armful of figures and Brienne trails after him through the snow into the smithy. 

“This is what makes them complete,” Jaime tells her as he stokes the fire and sets upon melting down the last of the metal, the scraps that remain of his Kingsguard armor. The horses will thus be adorned with miniature saddles, the bird’s feathers tipped to shine. He made one stag without thinking and chooses not to discard it, instead wrapping its antlers so that they gleam.

He reaches for the bear and then sets it back down, unable to imagine a way to embellish it and, more so, not ready to part from the final vestiges of his fellow protector. 

The work requires him to focus and Brienne quietly says she’ll continue her exercise. She gets out of breath too easily, Jaime silently assesses. The effort is too much for her and he wishes she would stop pursuing her goal so steadfastly. She should not want to leave them so quickly. Blue would not have wanted such a thing.

She was Blue, Jaime reminds himself. But she is not Blue anymore. 

“You need to recoup your strength,” he reminds her. Brienne nods, her lips pinched tight between her teeth and she sits at the doorway, on a stool Jaime set there for her. 

“Are you all right?” It’s Tommen who asks, the first words he’s offered Brienne since she appeared in their lives. He’s standing in the snow on the other side of the open doorway, knowing better than to enter while his father is working. 

“I might have overexerted myself,” Brienne admits. 

Tommen thrusts out his jaw and takes a moment to consider this. “What does that mean?”

Brienne chuckles very softly. “I tried too hard.”

“Oh.” Testing the boundaries, Tommen draws opposite Brienne in the doorway. “My sister says I do that. I don’t get so red in the face, though.”

Jaime’s on the edge of scolding him when Brienne laughs again, loud and booming, tossing her head back. It fills the space entirely. “You are very fortunate then,” she assures him, “to not have a countenance that gives away your every thought.”

Tommen cracks a smile and sits down. 

“Are you all right?” Brienne asks in an especially kind way. 

He shakes his head.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Another shake.

“Well, then, let us simply sit here together.”

So they do. 

A few figures remain in the cottage and so Jaime goes to retrieve them, finding Myrcella inside when he gets there. She has her nose in a book that Jaime is well aware she’s read tens of times and, as recently as a few months past, proclaimed as something better suited for Tommen. On closer inspection, he notes the redness around her eyes and the sniffling sounds emerging from between the pages and he goes to sit with her, running his hand down her back until she sighs and leans against him.

“Blue isn’t coming back,” she confesses. “I can feel it.”

Jaime sighs and holds her close until the tears are gone. 

Her face is clearer when they head back to the smithy together; Tommen and Brienne are still in the positions he left them in, but Tommen is in higher spirits and pointing out different landmarks only he knows for certain: the place where he got Myrcella perfectly in the back with a snowball, the spot where all the best berries grow in the spring.

“As if you’re the one that picks them,” Myrcella retorts. 

Tommen smiles placidly back at her and keeps going.

Myrcella comes out of her shell as the afternoon progresses, asking Brienne more questions, not expecting an answer from Blue. It helps, in a way, and Brienne unearths more the longer they speak, delighting Myrcella when she confesses her skill with a sword. 

“A proper sword?” Myrcella eagerly asks. “Like a knight?”

“Papa has- _oof,_ ” Tommen grunts when he gets a pointy elbow in his side.

“Don’t interrupt,” Myrcella admonishes him. 

“A proper sword,” Brienne echoes after the small skirmish that dusts up between them dies down. “That didn’t make me a knight, however. In fact, many called me the Maid of Tarth to remind me that I would never be a knight.”

Myrcella scowls at hearing it. “What an awful thing to remember.”

Brienne clearly feels the same. “Better forgotten, yes.” 

They smile at one another, Myrcella rather conspiratorially. “I don’t know if I’d like a sword,” she contemplates for her father to hear, if the glance in his direction is any indication. “But I should like to learn a skill that is just as useful.”

“Would you like to come by my side and learn about casting?” Jaime calls out and chuckles when Myrcella makes a face. “You can’t say I didn’t offer.”

“He thinks he’s so funny,” Myrcella hisses and Brienne laughs just as loudly as she did with Tommen.

They all head inside together for a late lunch, each of them slowing their steps so that Brienne doesn’t strain herself. Their efforts are not completely successful and Brienne falls asleep sitting up in a chair, unaware that Myrcella stops before her, studying the woman in front of her without having to explain why. 

Brienne sleeps through the meal and wakes for dinner with apologies and reddened cheeks. 

“You overexerted,” Tommen remarks in his newfound wisdom and it takes all Jaime has not to laugh. 

Both of his children are the liveliest they’ve been in Brienne’s presence, having come to the realization that they may not have Blue, but they _do_ have a brand new person to entertain and it isn’t long before Brienne is smiling broadly at the way they reletentlessly tease one another. 

“However I got here, I am glad I did,” Brienne informs them during a lull in their theatrics. Myrcella has taken to using a spoon as a sword in their mock duel and Tommen is exaggeratingly wounded in his chair. “When I return home, I will tell of this great battle and how well it was fought.”

Myrcella drops her spoon, jerks her head to look between Jaime and Brienne, and yelps, “You cannot go!”

Before Jaime can contradict her, she barrels on. “Because- because the snow! And it’s almost Sevenmas! Where would you even go? You couldn’t even remember Tarth this morning!”

His daughter means it logically, but Brienne’s face burns with shame and Jaime rubs at his forehead with his hand. “Ella, that was badly spoken. Apologize.”

Her cheeks go pink and Myrcella drops her head down to mumble, “M’sorry, Brienne.”

“You’re quite right, it will not be an easy journey,” Brienne sighs out. “Thank you for your concern, Myrcella, but I cannot impede on your family’s kindness for too long.”

“But are you sure?” It comes from Tommen, his earlier enthusiasm fading as Jaime observes him. “Ella’s right, it’ll be Sevenmas soon. And we… we are already without Blue. It would be nice to have company.”

He slumps in his renewed glumness and Jaime reaches out a hand to stroke Tommen’s hair, freezing midway through the gesture. 

Had Brienne said _Myrcella?_

“You’ve mentioned this Blue,” Brienne says gently and Jaime searches her face, trying his damnedest to control his suddenly rapid breath. “Who was he? I hope you don’t mind that I ask, but you seem rather distraught over his absence.”

“Blue was our bear,” Myrcella answers, as Tommen says, “Our lady bear, she was a very good bear. Brave and strong and I miss her very much.”

Nothing in Brienne’s countenance gives evidence that her sympathy is a falsehood when she says, “I am very sorry that you have lost her. But it is winter, perhaps she has gone as bears do? To hibernate?”

“Maybe,” Tommen says mournfully. 

Brienne sets her arm on the table and leans toward Tommen, her tone soft and encouraging. “Will you tell me about her? You must have a great many stories and I imagine you would tell them very well.”

The request stirs Tommen from his sadness and the light comes back into his eyes as he starts from the beginning. It feels like another lifetime, even if the motions are the same: Tommen throwing his arms high in the air to symbolize the stag’s antlers, standing up to show how he and Myrcella ran from the wolf, his roar ending with laughter when he mimics the lion.

Brienne shows no recognition. None at all. 

Seeing that, Jaime feels he is finally able to breathe properly. 

They stay at the dinner table longer than they usually do, Tommen is so caught up in his tale and Brienne very patient as he repeats several beats of the story. Jaime at last scoops him up and hollers, “Time for bed!”. He’s relieved to hear his son’s giggling _Good night, Brienne!_ as he is carted off. 

In the quiet of their room, Tommen asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow, Myrcella tugs at Jaime’s sleeve for his attention.

“Papa,” she whispers urgently. “Brienne, she…. She was, wasn’t she? Blue is gone, but _she_ is here. Why must she go, too?”

He’s unsure what answer will hurt her more - either Brienne must go before she learns the truth of them or she could stay near but never again be what they lost - so Jaime shakes his head and replies, “I don’t know, Myrcella. It’s all very strange.”

“We can’t let her leave, Papa. We just can’t.”

Jame kneels down and braces when Myrcella throws her arms around him in a desperate clutch. “It’s her choice, Myrcella. It’s not for us to decide what she does.”

“At least until Sevenmas. She’ll stay if we ask nicely, I know it. Please? Please, Papa, I can’t…” Myrcella hides her face in his shoulder and begs, “Please don’t make me say goodbye yet.”

Damn his bleeding heart, but Jaime promises her, “All right. I’ll ask.”


	11. XI

XI

She says yes. 

Jaime is deliberate in the way he asks, not framing it as a favor to his children, but instead calling to mind rationality and judiciousness, attributes he suspects Brienne will give more weight than sentiment. It is better, he tells her, if she sends word to a dependable contact on Tarth so that they may expect her and perhaps fill in some of the empty spaces of time she cannot for herself. That way she will know it is the correct destination or will surmise something better. 

She seems relieved to agree and thanks Jaime for his thoughtfulness, which is the first for him in quite a while, he must admit. 

The following morning finds them taking the trail to the village, Laurel obediently leading the way, without any discernible objection to taking the weight of an extra person and a significantly larger haul of supply. There is snow in every direction, the sun is shining brightly and the snap of the cold air reddens the tips of everyone’s noses, but they hardly notice. The children, in their immeasurable pleasure of Brienne’s company, chatter all the way through their trip and they reach the village far faster than Jaime has experienced in the past. 

After letting Myrcella and Tommen fly free and the customary exchange with the baker, Jaime sets the cart at the edge of the market and turns to Brienne. “I may need a little longer to barter with Garreth in the building over there - can you attend to those who come this way?”

“Of course, I am happy to be of assistance.” Brienne hesitates and asks, “How much do you charge?”

“It is not always a strict exchange for coin,” Jaime replies. “Sometimes it is materials or food. Really, it is at your discretion - whatever you feel is a fair trade.”

Brienne looks surprised. “You trust me with that decision?”

Jaime cocks his head and smiles with equal surprise. “You know, I believe I do.”

He turns heel as Brienne opens her mouth to argue and scuttles away before she can find the words. The bag full of carefully wrapped figures bangs against his left hip in his haste, though his smile does not fade. 

Garreth cheerfully welcomes him and they spend the better part of a half hour deciding what amounts to an agreeable price; he tells Jaime that his last collection was the subject of great bidding between a few parents who wished to buy the lot and several minutes are spent with Garreth trying to press more funds in Jaime’s direction. 

“I do not believe you truly know how special these are,” Garreth insists as he waggles a whimsical rabbit in the air, a monocle secured in place over one eye. Jaime meant it in jest, but Garreth seems to find it a particular favorite. “Nor would I dare insult Nan’s memory. Your dear mother would never forgive me if I took advantage.”

“I dare say, it cannot matter much to her at this point,” Jaime says, arching a single eyebrow. 

Garreth lets loose a hearty laugh. “Who’s to say? She could have joined all else in the forest after she left us mere mortals. Those woods have been the subject of far stranger stories, as you well know.”

“Do I?” Jaime’s answering grin goes near rigid. “I’m afraid I was away too long, perhaps I do not remember the tales as I should.”

“It’s as we always warn travelers, Jay. Strange spirits wander those woods, they always have!” Garreth shakes his head and starts counting out what he has deemed acceptable, never mind Jaime’s protestations. “Though your family has always been there, in some form or another. I imagine you’ve garnered their acceptance, otherwise you would have left again.”

“Yes, that is likely,” Jaime replies with a laborious effort at ease. 

He spends the remainder of his time inside the trading post selecting gifts for Myrcella and Tommen, last minute items that he would not have thought in his capability to purchase before that day. Considering Brienne’s prolonged stay, he finds some clothes better suited to her frame and hopes that she will not notice the parcel until they are too far down the trail to see them reasonably returned. 

Still, Garreth’s words weigh heavy on his mind when he returns to find the cart with its stores greatly diminished in his absence and Brienne looking up from a crate set inside with a highly satisfied expression.

“It went well, I take it?” Jaime asks. His deep thoughts escape him more quickly than he would have expected. “Are… are those chickens?”

“You said to accept what I deemed fair,” Brienne reminds him.

“That I did,” Jaime says slowly.

“I noticed in the stable this morning there was a coop in ill repair. You’ve said you will not accept compensation for helping me, but you cannot very well stop me from contributing in some other fashion.” Brienne smiles at her own pluck, so to speak, and Jaime cannot help but laugh. 

“I suppose the children are old enough to tend them,” Jaime says. “They were too young in the past and I was too busy.”

Brienne’s smile widens at his concession, one Jaime helplessly returns. It promptly falls away when she asks, “And my letter? Will they be able to send it?”

“Damn,” Jaime mutters and looks into a spare pocket where the letter still resides. “I was distracted and forgot to give it to Garreth.”

“I can take it, but there’s a woman coming back soon. We were discussing a goat.”

“A goat?”

She looks much too pleased, Jaime decides. “A goat.”

The woman she spoke of has a shrewd look on her face when she returns and Jaime soon finds out why. After speaking with her husband, the woman will not settle for less than half a dozen figurines from Jaime in trade for a goat, securing an agreement that Jaime will make one more trip to the village before Sevenmas. Everyone comes away from the scheme with satisfied expressions, though Jaime feels slightly bowled over.

“You have a knack for this,” Jaime informs Brienne as they walk together to the trading post. “For fair trade _and_ giving me more work to do.”

“I suppose I do,” Brienne says warmly. 

They chuckle together and enter the trading post to hear Garreth call out, “Forget something, did you, Jay? Oh! I see you found him then, my lady!”

Brienne sends Garreth a puzzled look. “Pardon me?”

“You’re quite in luck, you’ll be the first to see what he’s brought this time.” Garreth brings up the figurines from behind the counter and starts setting them out, oblivious to Jaime and Brienne’s absolute confusion. “Very lucky indeed, to be passing through again at the same time as our Jay.”

“I- I’m sorry, but I don’t understand,” Brienne says. Her lips part open to ask something else and she stops in place, her eyes lowering to the ground as if she’ll find the answer there and then looking back to Garreth. “You recognize me?”

“You’re not in your armor, aye, but - if you’ll excuse my familiarity - you’re rather unforgettable, my lady,” Garreth replies. He sets his palms on the countertop and beams. “Now which interests you the most? I find I’m most partial to the rabbit, myself.”

“You know me,” Brienne breathes out. Her entire bearing changes in seconds, the redness in her cheeks leeching away to leave nothing but stark white skin under her many freckles. “I was here.”

“You were here,” Jaime repeats, more to urge his thoughts to restart, for they had quite frozen when Garreth started speaking. 

Garreth finally seems to become cognizant to their astonishment. “Why, yes, a couple months ago, perhaps. You came asking about the local toymaker, my lady. It _was_ you, was it not?”

The air escapes Brienne’s body in one huge rush, her chest visibly pressing in as she jerks forward, then it comes back in a furious gasp and she turns to Jaime with her eyes wild, the blue of them relegated to the very edge when her pupils expand and she gasps yet again. 

“Good gods, are you all right?” Garreth starts to come around the counter and Jaime extends an arm to keep him away. 

It is a terrifying prospect, a harrowing discovery to be made and Jaime feels it leaden his insides as he watches it happen, as he watches her remember.

“I was here.” Brienne covers her mouth with her palm, looking wretched and sounding so very worse when she pulls her hand enough away to repeat it. “I was here, Jaim-.”

She shoves her hand back over her mouth and says nothing else.

Garreth is coming closer and Jaime has to jump into action, despite every fiber of his being screaming at him to _run_ , from Brienne, from Garreth, from this entire village, never to be seen again. _Again._

Instead of that, he grabs hold of Brienne’s limp arm and says, “My friend is very ill, we must go. Garreth, I’ll be back within a fortnight.”

“Are you sure-”

“I’ll see you then,” Jaime shouts over his shoulder and drags Brienne with him out the door. 

His eyes sweep the lane, searching for his children. Brienne gives no resistance, which cannot bode well. When he flicks his eyes to her, she is still pale as snow, her gaze turned inward and a look of horror on her face.

“You remember,” Jaime says grimly. It’s hardly a question. It sounds like a damnation. 

Brienne takes a shuddering breath and nods.

“All of it?”

He wants her to say no. He needs to hear the lie so he can believe for a little longer that the safe harbour he has made for Myrcella and Tommen hasn’t been irrevocably destroyed.

Brienne - stubborn, loyal, dangersome Brienne - grants him no such thing.

“All of it,” she says. 


	12. XII

XII

Their return to the cottage cannot be more different from the manner in which they set out.

Myrcella and Tommen know something is wrong from the moment Jaime beckons them. Tommen tries at first to ask questions and is hushed by his sister, who looks at Brienne and Jaime in turn with visibly rising concern. 

“Are you unwell, Brienne?” she asks.

Jaime answers, “It is better we return home. We’ve much to discuss there.”

Of course, he has no intention of allowing either of his children anywhere near when such conversation takes place. He wracks his mind for an excuse and gets one when Tommen discovers the pair of hens inside the crates and shouts excitedly. Myrcella allows herself to get drawn into a debate over what to name them and Jaime vehemently flicks the reins to urge Laurel home.

Brienne says nothing. She’s forebodingly silent until they arrive at their destination, sitting as if a stone statue in the seat beside him. Only her eyes move, surveying the rapidly passing scenes. Looking for something familiar? An escape? He does not know. 

He sends Tommen to the stable with instructions to brush Laurel until her coat shines, Myrcella to observe him and find a suitable place for their new friends. In a quieter tone, he urges Myrcella to keep her brother and herself out of sight until Jaime calls them once more. She agrees without argument and urges Tommen away. 

Brienne disembarks and gives him a steady look from the other side of the cart, nods, and walks into the cottage. 

Jaime feels no such ease and he stops at the doorway to catch his breath, to order his senses before following after her. 

She is methodically folding the cloak she was wearing, another spare of his, when he finds her inside. He copies her movements, finding it calms him to have a task, to make the length of fabric neat, its edges straight and corners sharp in the way he learned as a squire.

What he does matches Brienne’s handiwork and Jaime feels his hackles rise all over again.

She starts pacing in front of the doused hearth, her hands clasped together in front of her mouth, her breathing too slow and even to be anything but purposeful.

He cannot stand it any longer, so Jaime demands, “Well? What have you to say?”

“What- What have I?” Brienne’s startled bark of laughter shocks him. “Why did you not tell me that I… I was the _bear_? That you found me after-”

“I imagine that would have gone over quite well, no? _By the by, Brienne, did you know the last time you lay in front of the fire, you did not need the pallet at all? Your fur was cushion enough_.” Jaime shakes his head, astonished that it is a statement that can be reasonably said between them. “You did not remember and it was better that way, for all of us.”

“I have been driving myself _mad_ ,” Brienne says louder, speaking over him. “Do you not know how frightening it is, to not know who you are, where you come from? To have entire blank spaces in your memory that no one can account for?”

“They are not so blank now, are they? And what a boon, that you stumbled upon your target despite having been taken so off course! You were searching for the toymaker, but let’s not mince words about it, there is no reason to search me out.” Jaime strides closer to her, emphatically pointing at her as he does. “If you were looking for me, then you were looking for Mrycella and Tommen. Do not speak to me about what is frightening when you are the one who poses the greatest threat to them, when you have every power to take them from me.”

Brienne flinches as if she’s been physically struck. “You think that I would be so cruel as to do that? That I would take them from their home, from you? I would not!”

“A fine promise from someone who could not name herself in full only a few days ago, who could not name herself at all because she was a _BEAR_ ,” Jaime roars out. 

She does not cower under his rage. In truth, Brienne stands to her full height, her eyes narrowing, her voice forced into calm as she strenuously repeats, “I wouldn’t.”

Jaime stops in place, his chest heaving. He’s gotten close enough to her that she is a mere armspan away. Any closer, if he had a weapon in hand, he could strike her down and solve everything, but not for long. Not at all. 

He turns from her, his empty palm clenching at his jaw instead. “If not you, then the next person who follows. If you have found a way to us, there is likely to be another, then another. We are safe here no longer, thanks to you.”

“You are safe here _because_ of me,” Brienne snaps. “Have you forgotten the beasts, the actual lion that nearly killed you?”

“Give me my sword and I can kill them myself, what am I to do when whole armies come down on my head?” Jaime goes behind a chair and grips the back of it. “I am one man.”

“And I am the only one to have found you,” Brienne tells him, her entire countenance gone fierce and certain. “I may be signing my death warrant in telling you this, but I told no one of my suspicions, I came here of my own free will. No one - _I swear it_ \- no one will follow.”

He drops his head to keep from looking her in the eye. Her insistence is too determined, he cannot give in and trust it so easily. 

“If you are willing to listen, I will tell you,” Brienne goes on. “I will tell you everything I can and then I will do anything you ask of me. If it is helping you hide somewhere that even I cannot find you, I’ll do it. I swear it on my life.” 

What can he do but listen?

Jaime pulls back from the chair and motions to it, inviting Brienne to sit. When she does, settling down tenuously, Jaime crosses the room to where she was and takes the other chair, the cold and empty hearth separating them. 

She takes a few seconds, pressing her fist to her mouth and then nodding slightly, likely to herself. “All that I shared before this morning is the truth. I am from Tarth.”

“I don’t care where you are from, I want to know why you are here,” Jaime cuts in.

“And I will get there,” Brienne retorts sharply. 

Jaime sits back with a huff and Brienne takes a long, fortifying breath. 

“My father was the Evenstar, the Lord of our island. He did a fine job of it for a very long time, but after the deaths of my mother and brother, he was altered,” Brienne explains in a brittle tone. “It was… it was as if something had fractured within him and nothing that I… well, he was never the same.”

She looks to him as if to verify his attention and Jaime jerks his chin in response. 

“Our line was entitled to a male heir and, though I fail to exemplify many ladylike attributes, the title of Evenstar could not go to me when my father died suddenly. It went to a distant cousin instead, a man who did not care to keep me within Evenfall’s walls. I found myself relying on the kindness of a knight from our household, the same one who taught me to wield a sword.” She smiles gently, sadly. “Ser Goodwin took me into his home, but I could not rely on him forever. The smallfolk of Tarth may have recognized me as my father’s daughter, but even they could not reinstate me into the role.” 

Brienne shivers and stands, moving to the hearth with nary a look in Jaime’s direction. While her hands begin to coax a fire to light, she continues. 

“I decided to seek assistance from the Warden of the East, the king’s brother Lord Renly. We had met once before and he had seemed kind enough. I hoped he could provide guidance.”

“Renly Baratheon?” Jaime scoffs deep in his throat. “I’ve got a good guess as to how helpful _he_ was.”

“He was no help, but not in the way you doubtless expect. When I arrived, the castle was in turmoil and he could not take an audience,” Brienne replies. The fire sparks and lights and she stares at the growing flames. Her face shifts in obvious indecision and he watches her set her shoulders and angle her face in his direction. “I remember what you said, that night. Here, when I was… not myself. Regardless, I’m truly sorry to cause pain by telling you this, but the crown prince, Joffrey. He is dying.”

Jaime sits up from his purposeful slouch. “What?”

“What you saw coming came to be, he made many enemies, you see. There was a feast and he was poisoned. A horrible act and, I’m very sorry to say, a protracted end,” Brienne says carefully. “The royal assemblage has done everything they can to keep it a secret but I heard word of it when I visited Storm’s End. Frankly, they cannot hide it forever, but we are very far from those places that would get word first, so... he might already be gone.”

Joffrey. Dying? Jaime does his best to absorb it, to feel some measure of sorrow for the boy, a young man now. Too young to be dead, but too young to have made so ruthless an enemy without provocation. 

All the same, Brienne is correct. He cannot say he finds this ending unpredictable. 

“Are you all right?” Brienne gently asks him. 

Jaime turns his face away. “Go on.”

She hesitates a moment more and then speaks again. “The King and Queen have no other children. Legitimate children, that is. I’m sure you’re well aware that the King-”

“Has spread his bastards from North to South, East to West? Yes,” Jaime says curtly. “I know.”

“So I- I came up with a plan.” Brienne sighs and shifts back to face the fire. “I had nowhere to go, no demands on my life. I had armor and a sword and a foolish idea that if I were to find the lost Baratheon heirs, perhaps my fortunes would change. No. No, fortunes is the wrong word. I did not care for riches. I simply wanted my home back.”

Anger courses through him to hear Myrcella and Tommen reduced to nothing but a windfall, a golden trade. Before it can find a true foothold, to move him to something furious and cruel, Brienne says, “That was when I still thought them captives, when I imagined only horrors for the last seven years of their lives, if they were not already dead, like… like the kingsguard who died in trying to save them.

“I set off for the Goldroad, followed the path that was taken that day, studied it over and over, asked questions of anyone I came across. There was nothing to indicate that the story was a falsehood. It was a useless endeavor and I’d nearly given it up when I met a traveling maester.”

She pushes up from where she’d crouched and touches the shelf above the hearth. 

A timid smile on her face, she turns to Jaime. “He had a wooden toy in his possession. A horse, with a little saddle. He said- he said he had traded a number of items with a man, for a set of books.”

Jaime feels his breath leave him. It sounds something like a laugh, though he is not amused.

“I would have put no thought to it, but I found it rather sweet,” Brienne says. “And when I looked more closely, I saw something you likely wish I hadn’t. You are very good at casting now, the armor you use is indistinguishable from anything else, but that one must have been one of your first and-”

“You recognized the armor,” Jaime says with an agonized sigh. 

“The maester didn’t know, but I recognized some etchings, faint though they were. I’d admired the kingsguard enough to know what their vambraces looked like. No one else has that pattern. Being at that point very far from King’s Landing, I wondered if perhaps whoever had found that armor might have an idea where the body of the dead kingsguard had ended up. I could not find and return the children, but perhaps I would help lay Ser Jaime Lannister to rest at last.”

“I do not feel rested,” Jaime muses. “Quite the opposite.”

Brienne huffs lightly and returns to her chair. The fire crackles merrily in her stead.

“So that’s how you found me?” he asks.

“That’s why I decided to seek the toymaker. I had no idea it was you, the very thought is preposterous,” Brienne replies. “You, Ser? As far as anyone knows, you are dead.”

“Please don’t call me Ser,” Jaime says. “And I’m only dead until the next curious person meets that maester and looks at his wares.”

Brienne shakes her head, her smile growing very slightly. “Not possible.”

Her meaning becomes clear and Jaime sits forward in his eagerness. “You took it? You have it?”

“I bought it,” Brienne replies firmly. “But as you see, I came to you with nothing, so it is somewhere out there in the forest, buried beneath leaves and snow. It would take a miracle for someone to find it and put together what I did.”

“You don’t know where it is?” The brief flash of relief ekes away just as quickly. “You’re sure?”

“I lost it when I” - Brienne lets out a burst of air and presses the heel of her hand to her forehead - “when I became the bear.”

“You were a bear,” Jaime repeats. He knew the tale was coming to it, had accepted the undeniable fact of it, but it sounds wholly new to his ears. “How on earth did you become a bear?”

“That, I do not know, things changed when I did, time changed,” Brienne says slowly. “I recall coming to the village and meeting the shopkeep. He told me where to find you, but warned that the woods have scared the living wits out of men twice my age, that outsiders are discouraged from entering too deeply.”

Jaime would jest about it, but he only leans forward again, watching Brienne search for a way to tell the most fantastic part of her tale. 

“I remember walking in the trees and then- I spoke to someone,” she says, her eyebrows drawing together in concentration. “Who they were, what they said, it is a mystery. Next I knew, there was nothing but pain. Pain and fear and darkness and when I awoke, I was a bear.”

She chuckles, all disbelief and confusion. Words failing to come to mind, Jaime says nothing.

“I wandered, not for long, and came upon a scene. A stag facing down a young boy. Tommen.” Brienne’s mouth spreads in a soft smile. “It was Tommen, but of course I could not know that. What I did know was that he could not stand against a stag and so I struck it down. I watched the earth reclaim it and I followed after Tommen to make sure of his safety. I found him with Myrcella and then you.”

A chill runs down his back. “You were that close?” 

“Not for long. I felt an exhaustion overtake me and I fell into a slumber, only to wake to Myrcella’s screams. It was the wolf that time. I know I cannot tell him, but Tommen was correct - it was a direwolf. It, too, I defeated and soon after fell asleep again.”

“Until the lion,” Jaime says. 

“Yes,” Brienne says in a hushed voice. 

It is so different to look back on that day, to remember the terror that had engulfed him, to know without a doubt that Brienne was their savior. 

A hundred lifetimes or more could pass, and Jaime did not think he would ever truly grasp what it all meant.

“I waited for so long, after it was over. I fought so hard,” Brienne whispered. “I thought it might tear me to shreds, but I came out the victor. Barely. I waited for the deep sleep to take me again, but it didn’t. I remained on the road and time passed, so slowly in comparison to what I’d experienced thus far. From the time I became the bear, every time I woke anew, the world was a little colder, the leaves of the trees a different color. I lay there and wondered if next time I woke it would be to nothing but snow all around. I wondered if it would ever end. 

“I waited for the earth to take me, too, but it did not.” Brienne lets out a shaky breath and raises her striking eyes to his. “You did.”


	13. XIII

XIII

“You did.”

The earnest look on her face stills him. It steals the words from his mouth and the air from his lungs, surely the same as if Brienne had struck him with a physical weapon. A single thought blazes through his mind, the realization that she knows not how dangerous she remains. 

She is the danger Jaime invited in, that he allowed to pass over the threshold because he thought she was a tame beast, that Blue meant no harm. No matter her true intentions, Brienne could ruin everything still. 

He has to tear his eyes from her, to lose sight of her open expression. He drops his head to stare at his knees, tapping his fingers across them, and says, “I would like to believe that was not a mistake.”

Brienne does him the kindness of taking time before replying, “I understand I cannot simply ask you to trust me.”

“I trusted Blue easily enough.” Jaime tries for a glib tone and winces at how strained he sounds instead.

“Blue,” Brienne huffs. She rises, clearly unsettled, and Jaime watches her from his own seat. “I did wonder why you called me that.”

“Your fur,” Jaime answers slowly, fully aware of how strange it must sound. “It was so black it looked blue in the sunlight.”

Brienne absently touches her pale hair and shakes her head. 

“We discussed it in front of you - you don’t remember?” Jaime frowns. “You said you remembered it all.”

“I do, but-” She cuts herself off and begins pacing anew.

Jaime sits up straighter. “How much do you actually remember?”

“All of it, just as I told you. Only it- it was as if I was watching from afar,” Brienne answers. “I was in control of my actions, everything done was by my choice, but I still felt… constrained by my form.”

She pauses and Jaime feels his body automatically tighten in response; she has a way to her, he is learning, in bracing before saying something she does not wish to say. That she’ll say it anyway. 

And so she does. “It all came clearer, in more ways than one, the night you told me your tale. I’d been so consumed by my plight that I did not fully consider that I’d found exactly who I was looking for, but then-”

“I handed you everything in one fell swoop,” Jaime agrees, a surge of bitterness running through him. Every secret, given without thought because he’d thought his audience a dumb animal, unaware that it was he who was the fool. “So what say you now that you have the tongue to speak it? What is your judgement? You know that Myrcella and Tommen are my own - which is worse, that I made them or stole them?”

Brienne crosses her arms and does not reply.

“You had time to think on it, days upon days, so what have you to say?” Jaime demands.

“Do you want me to call you a scoundrel?” Brienne asks with what looks like rapidly diminishing patience. “A blackguard? You had an affair with the Queen. You cuckolded the King. The King! Anyone with sense would know better than to do anything so absolutely ill-advised!”

Jaime glowers at her, never mind that he invited her thoughts on the matter, but Brienne continues before he can find the presence of mind to respond. 

“You courted certain death, time and again, until finally you convinced the world you were _actually dead_. I can’t decide whether it is better or worse-”

“Seeing as I’m still actually alive, I’ll say it’s better,” Jaime interjects, stopping Brienne in her tracks. 

She gives him an exasperated glance and then drops back down to her chair with a sigh. “It wasn’t wisely done, but it is done,” she says wearily. “Perhaps I would not have said so that night, but being the bear, being _inside_ the bear forced me to consider it more soundly.”

“Inside the bear,” Jaime repeats. “You said you were in control.”

“The bear was a guise,” Brienne says. “A fortunate one, in retrospect, but not one I took voluntarily and as so, not entirely me.”

It astonishes him to hear her say it. “Fortunate?”

Brienne slowly nods. “Assume I’d arrived as I planned, in my right mind. I would have found a man with a more than passing resemblance to a lost Lannister, and two children of an age and with the looks of the missing Baratheon heirs.”

He scoffs, “You mean to say I could not have charmed away your suspicions?” 

“I think you overestimate your charm, S- Jaime,” Brienne says wryly.

He lifts his face so that they can share a faint smile. 

“In coming here as Blue, I was able to see, to learn,” Brienne says slowly, deliberately. “Even if they were true Baratheons, I do not know what I would have done.”

Jaime looks away again. “Do you not?”

“Honor would have compelled me in one direction, Myrcella and Tommen’s happiness in another. I thank the gods that I do not have to make that choice.”

Her honesty makes him bristle, his reply scathing yet again. “Yes, let us thank the heavens that your honor would not be so compromised.”

Brienne takes a quick breath, but her words are just as sharp when she says, “I do not have much else to my name. You have had your struggles, but do not presume that you know mine.”

“My struggles, it seems, are now entirely dependent on you, my lady,” Jaime retorts. 

She looks angry at him for saying so. “You are purposefully mishearing me.”

“You could take them anyway,” Jaime says accusingly. “The King may not be their father, but their mother is the Queen. Take them in secret, let her hide them away. I’m sure she’ll value them more after this absence and now that Joffrey is likely dead. She would give you a tidy sum, perhaps even the castle of your choosing. Your own or something far grand-”

“I do not want anything she can give me!” Brienne stands to her feet, thrust forward in her fury and Jaime thumps back in his chair in abject surprise. “I will not deliver your children to a woman who was ready to sell them as soon as look at them. I will not take them from the only true home they’ve ever known, where they are happy and loved, especially if it means-”

She stops and Jaime peers up to see Brienne shake her head. “If it means what?” 

Now she evades his gaze. Her flare of anger disperses as he watches and she is soft-spoken when she answers, “You would surely die as punishment, no matter the circumstance of their return. No man should die for loving his children so much.”

“Take them and I would die just the same,” Jaime says.

“I know,” Brienne says gravely. “I will not do that to you. I will not do that to them. I swear on my honor, however you think of it.”

Before he can think of anything to say, to find a way to untangle the warmth blooming in his chest - because he believes her, of course he believes her. She is not Blue, but she is Brienne and he feels to his core that she loves Tommen and Myrcella, no matter her form - there is a noise at the door. 

It is the familiar sound of a great tussle for the latch. Experience tells Jaime that it is likely two pairs of small hands fighting for a grip, and it comes with Tommen and Myrcella’s bickering voices on the other side. 

Jaime shakes his head, minutely, to regain his bearings and goes to let them in. Myrcella has an apologetic expression and Tommen rushes straight by him, excitedly proclaiming that he won’t be tricked, not this time. He starts upending baskets and rifling through cupboards; the longer he searches, the more eager Tommen becomes.

Brienne goes to stand by Jaime’s side and they share a look of confusion, an exchange far less fraught than what had come so briefly before.

“What _are_ you doing?” Jaime finally asks his son and Myrcella groans.

“He believes I was keeping him away so that you could conceal our Sevenmas gifts,” she explains. 

“Oh! Right.” Jaime grimaces at the thought of what he’d bought, still shoved under the riding bench. Louder, to catch Tommen’s attention, he says, “Well, if I’ve been found out, there’s nothing to do but confess. Yes, Tommen, you’re correct and you’re not likely to find them.”

Particularly if Jaime retrieves them later and hides them in all the places Tommen has already looked.

Crowing with triumph and abandoning the mess he’s made, Tommen goes before Jaime and Brienne. “I must know what it is! Please!”

“So impatient,” Jaime teases him. “All you have to do is wait a matter of days.”

Tommen pulls his hands into fists, stiffens his body and stands on his toes to screech,“I cannot stand it!”

Jaime laughs and pats his head. “And yet you must.”

“Brienne, you’ll tell me, won’t you?” Tommen pleads in her direction. 

“I am afraid I am no help,” Brienne says apologetically. “I did not see a thing.”

Tommen lets out a sigh that seems too big to have come out of him; he lopes off, grumbling at being denied, and throws a glare at his sister when she titters. He’s thrown himself into a chair by the merrily roaring fire when Myrcella draws closer to Jaime and says, “I did try.”

“You always do,” Jaime replies. “We must accept your brother as he is.”

Myrcella looks to where Brienne has gone to Tommen’s side to coax him out of his sulk. She asks for only him to hear, “Papa, is everything all right now?”

“It’s… better,” Jaime says carefully.

She bites her lip and glances to Brienne again. Jaime’s sure they’re equally surprised that Brienne has managed to get Tommen to gather all he’d tossed about, though she’s doing a fair share of the collecting. 

In an even quieter voice, Myrcella says, “You said Tommen. She’ll have heard.”

“I did, didn’t I?” Jaime bites back a sigh. No Lannister should be this perceptive, he silently curses to himself, and drops down to speak softly in return. “Do not be frightened, but Brienne knows who we truly are.”

A variety of emotions pass over his daughter’s face, too quick for him to catch each and every one. There is shock, surely, but it finishes with a contemplative stare into the distance. Myrcella turns back to him and says, “Of course I am not frightened. It is Brienne.”

Jaime’s mouth parts in his surprise, though he has no chance to speak. 

“But that you told her is strange,” Myrcella says slowly and then her gaze sharpens. “Unless, does she-”

Jaime nods and Myrcella’s eyes fill with tears as she understands the full breadth of it. For the second time in a matter of minutes, he is brushed aside by his child and Myrcella races to where Brienne is closing a neatened cupboard, her kneeling position allowing Myrcella to gleefully throw her arms around Brienne’s shoulders. The woman looks astonished, and then pleased, and then hugs her back.

He watches as Myrcella pulls away to silently mouth a word - unquestionably _Blue? -_ and Brienne pauses, glances to Jaime and back at his daughter. When Brienne nods, Myrcella softly squeals and embraces her all the more enthusiastically. 

“You told her. I was unsure you would,” Brienne says, much later, after Myrcella has hung from her like a limpet for what seems like hours. She and her brother have been shuffled off to bed at last, giving Jaime the first opportunity to speak with Brienne privately again, with a much lighter heart. 

“I’ve found I rarely have to _tell_ Myrcella things. She simply knows them,” Jaime remarks. “Tommen is too young to learn of everything, but Myrcella understands the need for our seclusion.”

“Understands…” Brienne trails off. “So it’s not just the bear she knows about?”

“It was not my intention,” Jaime says with a tired grin. “Nevertheless, you were not the only one listening that night.”

“Oh my.”

Jaime laughs under his breath and stops Brienne from setting up the pallet she’s been using. “Allow me to take that, you’ll be far more comfortable in my bed.”

Brienne colors so quickly, he can almost feel the heat come off her cheeks. 

“I’ll take the pallet,” he clarifies, feeling slightly embarrassed, as well. “You are, as you’ve always been, a welcome guest.”

“You didn’t give Blue your bed,” Brienne points out, her face still quite flushed.

“Blue would have left fur everywhere. Dreadful manners,” Jaime says lightly. 

She tries to convince him otherwise, but Jaime won’t have it. He goes into his room long enough to set it to rights and then urges Brienne inside. 

On the brink of closing the door, she hesitates and says, “I don’t know why I changed back. It doesn’t make any sense, that night was no different than any other. There was no mysterious figure, no warning. One moment I was the bear and then I was myself.”

“I, well,” Jaime starts. It replays in his mind, the roar-turned-scream of agony. It is worse in retrospect, knowing it was Brienne, knowing of her confusion and silent despair. “Myrcella had just told me that she knew of our past and that she accepted things as they are now. That she does not wish to change them.”

Brienne silently nods. 

“We all… we all voiced our happiness over our current state,” Jaime adds in a very precise sort of way. 

“I thought...” Brienne stops and frowns. 

The sight of it makes his stomach tighten, though Jaime cannot fathom why. “You thought what?”

“I thought that if there would be a change, it would be after you told me how you three came to be here,” Brienne replies. “I heard you and knew it for truth, but nothing changed for days. I thought… I wondered if perhaps it was a punishment for my selfish quest.”

As if she were to know true selfishness, Jaime thinks to himself. 

“So I tried to help in any way I could, yet I remained the same. I was quite beginning to wonder if I would remain a bear for the remainder of my days,” she says with a humorless laugh. “Then I was simply walking and one step to the next, it was undone. And then it took days more before it became clear.”

“Aside from recalling your original change,” Jaime says.

“It continues to elude me,” Brienne sighs. “I would like to know it, if only so I do not repeat my missteps.”

“If you discover it, do let me know. I’m sure the gods are yearning for the chance to turn me into an ass for some offense or another,” Jaime replies. 

His impertinence is rewarded with a startled smile and fond laugh; with that, they are able to bid each other a good night and Jaime falls onto the pallet in exhaustion. As he closes his eyes, he thinks to himself that it is nothing to the comfort of a living, breathing bear at his back, yet he sleeps just as soundly as if it were.

The next morning has its demands, as well as the next after that. Six toys in a handful of days is a great task, but one that Brienne insists he is capable. She, in the meanwhile, commits herself to the labor of rebuilding the coop for the pair of hens.

When Jaime hears that she needs thinner slats of wood for the frame, he pauses in the middle of shaping another rabbit and goes to collect his axe. He follows Myrcella to the stable to find Brienne and Tommen deep in conversation, where Brienne is explaining how one must swiftly extract an egg without getting pecked. 

Tommen is dubious, at best, and Myrcella takes it upon herself to say, “It will be good of us to learn. Imagine it, Tommen, fresh eggs every morning if we’d like.”

“Maybe I don’t like eggs all that much,” Tommen cagily replies.

“Don’t fib this close to Sevenmas or else you’ll only get coal,” Myrcella warns him and Tommen’s eyes go wide in fear. 

Brienne chuckles at them as she notes Jaime standing at the entrance. “You didn’t have to come this way,” she amiably rebukes him.

“I heard you needed a hand.”

“I have two, Jaime. I only need the blade,” Brienne replies. She takes the axe from his grip as lightly as she’d told Tommen he needed to procure eggs, her fingertips grazing over his palms as she does so. The sensation of it persists even after she has returned to the other side of the room. “On with you, I’ve got this.”

The next time Jaime is allowed near the stable, the coop is complete, Cluck and Buck - so named by Tommen - are set cozily within and his son has an egg in hand. He displays it proudly and announces, “I only got pecked once.”

“And he bore it very well,” Brienne adds. Behind her, Myrcella shakes her head and makes a grotesque face, her tongue sticking out in a silent scream that Jaime suspects she thinks approximates Tommen’s true reaction when said pecking occurred. 

Jaime stifles his snort of amusement and proceeds to give Tommen his - possibly undue - compliments. 

The days sweep by and Brienne continues to keep the children company as he whiles away on his project. He finishes with a day to spare before Sevenmas, a tight race made all the more difficult whenever he observes the trio of them from the window, mucking about in the snow. They always return with rosy cheeks and high spirits, ready to warm themselves by the fire and fill Jaime in on their latest discoveries: mundane animal prints in the snow, owls out during the day, a bush full of rosehip that can be coaxed into a fragrant tea.

They are, none of them, things the children could have done with Blue. It changes nothing - Jaime knows without question that Brienne would defend them as diligently as the bear would have done, perhaps more. He wonders if in their wandering in the nearby woods, Brienne is always alert, on the watch for another beast coming their way, another she must face down for the sake of Tommen and Myrcella.

He does not know what makes him certain, but Jaime feels that it is over, that whatever lessons the gods willed on them have been imparted. 

Jaime would very much like a more detailed explanation, but nothing comes. 

Still, he is put to a quiet test when the day comes to make the delivery. The snow is thick enough that to travel by wagon would be too much of a burden on poor Laurel. They’d also taken so much supply in their last trip, he doubts that there will be much of a demand for more this time around.

He considers it for mere seconds and comes to a decision, telling Brienne, “I’d like you to stay with the children here in the cottage for the day. I can make the journey myself, it will be much faster that way.”

Brienne realizes his meaning and stammers, “A-are you certain?”

“Do I trust you, you mean?” Jaime asks. “To not cause harm? To not run away once I am out of sight?”

She answers with a wary expression. 

“I believe I do,” Jaime tells her, because he does and she should hear it. 

“Thank you,” she says softly and something in it makes Jaime hasten out the door, bestowing kisses on his children’s heads, with promises of a quick return.

The snow slows Laurel’s pace and it is a miserable slog to the village. Jaime has to stop at the post and assure Garreth that all is well, that Brienne is indeed a friend and on the mend. His meeting with the woman who bartered with him for the goat goes well enough, though she makes a careful study of all that Jaime has made with a beady eye before she sniffs with approval. 

Jaime almost wants to charge her two goats just for that.

They agree he will return when the weather is more manageable, which likely won’t be for weeks, seeing as it starts to snow again in earnest as they speak. It is only the thought of everyone’s worry that keeps him from taking a room at the inn for the night and so Jaime pushes for Laurel to return them home, though the going is even slower than their original journey.

He curses the snowfall and the rapidly darkening skies for making his words a lie, for surely causing everyone at home to be concerned for his safety. It so consumes his thoughts that he passes the site of the lion attack without thinking of it. When he approaches the curve of the trail, he looks over his shoulder and sees nothing but mounds of snow, Laurel’s steps quickly filling in. 

When the lights of the cottage finally come into view, barely filtering through the trees and thickly falling snow, relief soars through him. Inside, Jaime knows, there is a warm fire and good company, people who will be glad of his return. 

It urges him through the remaining distance, in getting Laurel into her stall. Returning outside, he discovers a convenient trench between the stable and cottage and follows it. Within his home, he finds a scene that warms him even more than the blissfully roaring fire.

Myrcella is perched on the floor, cushioned underneath by a folded blanket, her eyes closed in deep slumber and head tipped against Brienne’s leg; Brienne, who is sitting in a chair with Tommen curled onto her lap, pressed to her shoulder so that his head is tucked under her chin. 

Brienne is awake, her expression glad when she sees Jaime come through the door and shake off the clinging snow. He shivers dramatically and she silently laughs as he unwraps himself from his many layers and slowly begins to thaw. 

There is a hearty stew to eat, still heated through, and Brienne shakes her head when he gestures an offer to take Tommen off her hands. He eats and watches them, takes in Myrcella’s expression shifting with untold dreams, Tommen’s soft sighs and Brienne’s soothing of them both. She brushes a hand over Myrcella’s hair and presses her cheek to the top of Tommen’s head, providing comfort that settles them both.

“They wanted to stay up,” Brienne says in apology as he takes the other chair, but Jaime waves her off.

“If I could have been here sooner-”

“I assured them no amount of snow would keep you away.”

Jaime runs a hand through his snow-dampened hair and gives her a wry grin. “So certain, were you?”

“Yes,” Brienne says simply. 

His grin turns genuine and Brienne slides her gaze away. “I did feel rather guilty for my hand in this. I must apologize, Jaime. You would not have had to travel in such weather if I did not arrange for it.”

“You do not control the weather, Brienne,” Jaime objects. “And you were thinking of the future, of what we will need. I cannot fault you for that.”

“Still,” Brienne says grimly. “Tommen became rather anxious. Tonight brought to mind how Blue left. I regret that.”

Jaime looks at his son and exhales slowly. “He has not mentioned Blue very much of late.”

“No, not aloud,” Brienne admits. “I think he hoped I was right, that Blue went to hibernate, that perhaps she will return with Spring.”

They both fall quiet. Jaime opens his mouth and finds there are no words. 

“Will you tell him?” Brienne grazes her hand over Tommen’s golden hair, her eyes saddened. “The truth? After I am gone?”

It jolts him from his silence. “Gone?”

“Tomorrow is Sevenmas,” Brienne says quietly, reminding him of what he’d requested of her days and days before. “Once it’s over, I’ll have to wait until the trails are passable, but-”

“Brienne.” Urgency makes his voice quick, vehement. “Surely you cannot believe- I made that offer to a stranger. You are not one anymore. You never were, truly. If you were to leave, it would not be by my request.”

“I do not wish to hasten my departure,” Brienne replies. “But I cannot stay here forever and I fear- I fear I would confuse them if I linger too long.”

The warmth in his chest is gone, replaced by a clawing, scraping wretchedness. It makes the words hoarse when he asks, “Where will you go? Tarth?”

Brienne shakes her head. “There is nothing for me there. I thought I might try going North, I’ve heard there are houses where women often train with swords as men do. I could make use of my skills there.” 

“Would we see you again?” Jaime asks. He sounds horribly disappointed, he realizes as it comes out; he would not blame Brienne if she regarded him with blatant pity in return. 

She softens instead. “Of course you will, if you wish it.” 

“We would wish it,” Jaime tells her quietly, firmly. 

“Then I’ll return. In time,” Brienne replies. 

Jaime does not think her a liar, but it is of little comfort to hear her say so. 

He sits back, at a loss for words once more. Several moments pass with neither of them contributing to further conversation, the crackle of the fire warring with the newly howling winds outside. _Yes_ , he thinks to himself, _let the snow fall. Let it fall and fall and fall so that she may not-_

Standing suddenly, Jaime says, “I’ll get the children to bed.”

He hefts Myrcella up first, fully expecting her sleep to be a farce, but she remains limp in his arms, no desperate whispers or pleading looks to be found. He takes the time to tuck her in and stays in the room a little longer, staring at her. Her looks are so much like the Queen, but that is all that remains of the woman, Jaime silently decides. Myrcella’s spirit is something else altogether, far fiercer and true, with a tender heart that the Queen could never possess, not for any gold or manipulations.

It is Tyrion that he sees in Tommen, or perhaps what Tyrion could have been had life not forced him to be guarded and ever ready with a quip, before life itself was snatched away from his hands. Jaime considers it with sorrow as he stops at the doorway and sees Brienne cuddle the boy closer and sneak a kiss to his forehead, unaware of Jaime’s gaze. Bright and bold and fearless - the best things about Tyrion. That is what he sees in Tommen, and his son will have a far greater chance of pursuing his own happiness.

Jaime hopes that he can do it, that he can help them become everything they wish to be. He does not have the Lannister riches or connections any longer, but they have made it this far as they are, the three of them. 

Yes, they have made it this far. 

He approaches them and whispers to Brienne that he’ll take Tommen, sliding his hands under Tommen’s shoulder and knees as she leans forward for the trade. It brings her closer as well and Jaime glances up to see that Brienne’s face is a hair's breadth away, her eyes moving from Tommen’s restful face and up to Jaime’s.

It’s as natural as anything - the impulse fed by a yearning he does not wish to name, an undeniable insistence that could only come from the very center of him - for Jaime tilts his head and brushes his lips over Brienne’s, the kiss gone by the time she gasps in surprise. 

It is perhaps fear that moves his feet, a dreadful suspicion that when he looks back to her, he’ll only find a glare or a reprimand. Or worse, pity.

It takes longer to settle Tommen into bed, his son clinging to him in sleep. He mindlessly burrows his face into Jaime’s neck and requires soothing before relaxing once more. Even then, Jaime stands between their beds and breathes in and out, slowly. 

Once. Twice. Thrice. 

On his return to the sitting room, he finds Brienne standing near the hearth. She looks to him, obviously unsettled, and then back at the fire. 

“Why did you do that?” she asks, barely loud enough for him to hear. 

“It is difficult to say,” Jaime admits. Why had he? Why does he wish to do it again?

Brienne draws herself up with a deep inhale. “You need not feel sorry for me, Ser-”

“Ser? I am Ser now?” Jaime asks. She rarely uses his name, rarely has to, but she’s said _Jaime_ often enough that it is familiar to hear it. 

“-or to, to reward any of my assistance or to assure my silence on the truth of your past,” Brienne blusters on. “I did not do it to seek your affections.”

“For gods’ sake, it wasn’t an exchange of goods, Brienne,” Jaime retorts. “I didn’t- you don’t- this isn’t…”

He ends with a large sigh and spreads his hands at his sides. “It felt right. The idea of it and the occurrence, more so.”

“The occurrence,” Brienne echoes. “Of kissing me, you mean.”

“Well, yes.”

“It felt... right?” She looks far more cautious than skeptical. It allows a hope that Jaime hadn’t even known he was searching for. 

“Didn’t it?” he asks.

Brienne averts her face, her eyes downcast. When she responds, Jaime has to strain to hear her words. 

“I have not known what to make of it,” Brienne murmurs. “To want something so much… I’ve always been told that such things are unseemly.”

He slowly steps toward her. “You do feel something then?”

She gives him an impatient glance. “Do not pretend that you did not know.”

“I didn’t know,” Jaime says honestly. “I haven’t… you know the story, Brienne. I loved one woman, blindly and recklessly at that. I confess I do not much know how to navigate it on my own.”

“Love?” Brienne asks, almost soundlessly. 

“I’ve known very few kinds. The worst in her, the best in my children,” Jaime says and Brienne reluctantly nods in understanding.

How odd it is, to contemplate it and see it for what it is. His love for his children is pure and uncomplicated, nothing so tangled and desperate as what he feels growing inside of him as he keeps looking at Brienne, taking root so strongly that Jaime finally knows what it would mean to lose it. 

So Jaime fervently continues, “With you… what I know for certain is that before you came, Brienne, we were happy. We were content. I was content. We could have gone years more as we were.”

He draws closer and Brienne bites her lip as he does, her eyes round and glimmering. 

“What I know now is that if you were to leave, we would never feel that way again. I believe, truly, we will always feel your absence and will always feel incomplete.”

Brienne is near enough that all Jaime has to do is reach to touch her, a dangerous temptation. He is becoming certain that if he does that, he will cling to her until she has no option but to stay, for he will never let her go.

“You make us complete, Brienne,” he repeats and it comes to him like a thunderbolt. Awed, he says, “I think that is why you changed back.”

He laughs softly to himself as Brienne goes absolutely still before him, only her lips moving to ask, “How do you mean?”

“That night, we all said it in our own ways, that our family was no longer just me and Myrcella and Tommen,” Jaime explains. “We loved Blue and we said so.”

Brienne’s expression falls and he knows she does not fully understand. “Jaime… I am not Blue.”

“Of course not, _of course_ ,” Jaime says urgently. “We did not know it when we said it that you were hidden away inside, that there was so much more that we hadn’t learned of. Whoever, whatever changed you, they must have heard us and felt we were finally ready to discover it. You said it yourself, don’t you see?”

She shakes her head and Jaime cannot stop himself, he reaches out to touch his thumb to the tears knocked loose by her movement. His heart leaps when Brienne lifts her own hand to cover his, anchoring it in place, not pushing him away. 

Brienne shuts her eyes but Jaime knows she is listening. He knows it must be said. 

“If you had come to us as you planned - you would not have known the truth and we would have always feared you. However the curse came to be, I think this was the lesson we were all meant to learn, that there is more within.”

Jaime stops, well aware that there is a whole slew of words he can add, pleas for understanding, outright begging that she stay, stay forever and never make them suffer the loss of her. He does not allow a single one to escape him. 

He waits. It is all he can do. 

She does not make him wait long. 

“Yes,” Brienne says quietly, and he knows it means a great many things. “There is more within.”


	14. XIV

Chapter XIV

_Epilogue_

There is a home deep in the woods. It is surrounded on all sides by trees unfurling with vibrant green leaves and bushes with fragrant flowers that will soon turn into berries to be plucked and gleefully devoured. The thicket, where it is not trampled by a variety of feet, grows dense enough to cushion any of those who choose to lie in the sun to enjoy it. 

The trees used to grow closer to the home, but many were cleared out to make room for the expanded stable and the dedicated hen house that could no longer fit within when a third horse was added. There are two goats, one of them very naughty, as it frequently climbs to chomp away at the thatched stable roof, to the chagrin of anyone watching. The hens and their smattering of chicks roam freely and often have to be shooed away from pecking at the seeds in the newly sown garden. 

Once upon a time, the home was a small cottage with few rooms, well suited to a family of three. As the years passed, its size altered, with rooms added in accordance with the growing number within.

They were three that became four when she came. The lady of the home, as she is now known, was a companion first, then a friend and then beloved, which she stayed henceforth. Call her a lady to her face, however, and you’ll get a look of deep skepticism and an order to raise your blade and hold it properly, or else you’ll be sorry for wasting her time and did you _really_ come all the way from the village to do just that? 

When one hears her ask that, they scramble into an appropriate stance, for there are numerous other students awaiting their turn.

The father was once known as the toymaker. To be sure, he still holds the mantle, but he has moved onto larger prospects and is just as often referred to by the local villagers as the clockmaker. When asked, he’ll tell anyone that will listen that he cannot stop time, but he’s found a certain satisfaction in holding it in his hands until he sees fit to let it fly free. 

If he ever held a title aside from toymaker or clockmaker, no one really cares to know. They like him very much as he is. 

The two eldest children look most like the father, the three youngest a combination of him and his wife. They are a loud, boisterous family of seven that take up a great deal of space in these woods, a place they like to be as much as indoors, if not more so. 

They are outside today, taking advantage of the warm sun and brisk air - and letting the smoky air inside their home clear out following an unfortunate attempt to make a cake for their eldest, Myrcella. She is a day away from being eight-and-ten and knew the attempts at a celebration were coming, though not with such poor results.

So they walk together, the youngest in her father’s arms, the second youngest on his mother’s shoulders and everyone else ambling along at a steady pace. 

Tommen, the second eldest, carries a book, its inside filled with thoughts and scribbles and, dare he hope, lyrics. The only reason he does not have his guitar is because he unfortunately snapped two of the strings just this morning. His other stringed instrument is too small for his hands now, having been a long ago Sevenmas gift that is waiting for one of his younger siblings’ interest. 

That same Sevenmas saw the first addition to their family, and also a bow for Myrcella, which she has come to use with great skill. It was too large for her once - not that it stopped her from learning - and is now just the right size, hanging from one shoulder as she leads the way through the forest. 

It is frightfully easy to get lost among the trees if you are not familiar with them. The stories of the woods range from eerie to mystical and it takes a brave soul to venture within - which is likely why the lady has yet to turn away a pupil, for she knows that if they were not worthy of wielding a sword as she does, they would not have arrived to begin with. 

The family has adventurously poked and prodded at many of the forest’s pockets and coppices, but even they sometimes find an unfamiliar spot. That, in fact, happens today. 

As it goes, one of them has been here before. 

“Everything all right?” Brienne’s husband asks when she stops in her tracks.

Brienne looks around in every direction as she gently swivels her son off her shoulders and sets him to stand on his own. He immediately clings to her leg, but she still feels the shivers that have swept from the base of her neck down the expanse of her spine. Putting a hand to the source of the sensation, Brienne turns to Jaime and says, “I feel very strange.”

“Do we need to return home?”

“No… no, I’ve only…” She carefully turns in a circle, the boy at her feet squealing with happiness as she does and Brienne offers him an indulgent smile that he matches when he turns his face upwards. “Are you going to let go?”

“No!” he enthusiastically replies. 

“He’ll need to learn a new word eventually,” Jaime says.

“No!”

“Or not.”

“Is everything all right?” It is Myrcella who asks, having returned when she realized most everyone else had stayed behind in the tiny grove they’ve found themselves in. 

“Brienne doesn’t feel well,” Jaime explains.

“I’m fine,” Brienne interjects before Myrcella can fuss over her. 

“Are we stopping to eat?” asks Tommen, to the cheers of his younger brothers. “I’ve not brought anything with me.”

“Of course you haven’t,” Myrcella remarks. She tugs the bag over her other shoulder closer. “There’s a river near, we can rest and eat there.”

Brienne recognizes well enough the beginnings of a squabble - Tommen is, as ever, gifted at making Myrcella lose her serene composure - so she says, “Something about this place is familiar. Have we been here before?”

“I don’t think so.” Tommen turns in place as Brienne did, taking in the dense foliage and stray beams of sunlight breaking through. There is a lone stump in the center of the near perfect circle of trees and he regards it with interest. “Think that’s your handiwork, Papa?”

“Doubtful. I’ve never wandered this far in without one of you with me,” his father answers. 

Tommen hums with interest and moves closer to the stump, making moves to sit on it when Brienne shouts, “No! Don’t!”

He tumbles over to one side, having too late heard her directions and his spill makes his siblings laugh with delight. Brienne apologizes, but he too is chuckling and waves away her words. When he pushes to stand however, a curious look passes over his face. 

Brienne feels the chill again, stronger and more powerful than before, the reason for it coming to light when Tommen digs his hands further into the earth and brings something out of it as he stands. 

It is a wooden horse. 

Brienne and Jaime gasp in tandem.

“How did this...?” Tommen brushes the loam and moss away from the figure, raising his eyes to his parents when he recognizes his father’s early work. “You said you hadn’t been here.”

“I haven’t,” Jaime says, just as Brienne whispers, “I have.”

“You have?” asks Myrcella, her attention split between them and keeping small hands out of the bag filled with goodies. Jaime takes the bag and quells the boys with a stern look that Mycella is well aware they will see through soon enough. 

“This is where-” Brienne turns again, unencumbered by a latched-on toddler and she covers her mouth with her hands and laughs disbelievingly into them. “This is where it happened.”

Tommen’s hands drop to his sides in shock. “Here?”

It is a tale he’s only half believed, but the first he took to writing down when he learned that such things could be written, not only read in books. The first Spring that Blue did not return, Tommen was heartbroken, the second slightly less so, and the third is when he was told of the secret, which he’d always thought was only a fable told to him as comfort for his dear friend never having returned. 

The look on Brienne’s face, however, cannot be so dismissed and Tommen finally sees it for the truth.

“Oh,” he says, and drops to a graceless heap on the ground. “I see.” 

Brienne goes to kneel at his side when he manages to sit properly. “Are you all right?”

“Well, you know-” Tommen pauses, his mouth working open and shut with nothing coming out. He gives Brienne a pleading look and she tugs him close for a hug, silently rueing as she does that he has grown so much. There is no undoing it, but when she looks at him, she still easily recalls the small, bold boy facing down a stag. 

“I know it is difficult to believe,” she tells him. “It happened to me and even I can’t completely fathom it.”

“But _how_?” Tommen asks, his youth showing in his widened eyes and awed voice. 

“I don’t…” _remember_ , she means to say, but suddenly- oh, but suddenly she does. 

Pressing a hand to her cheek, Brienne looks in every direction and then turns to the others still standing. Jaime, with their infant daughter in his protective grasp, nods at Brienne to continue. His eyes are as wide as Tommen’s, but he moves to have everyone sit and once they all have, Brienne begins.

“I was walking through the woods, I’d come from there,” she says, pointing between a pair of trees. “There was a path that dwindled to nothing and I couldn’t find my way back when I tried. Then ahead, I saw an open area and thought I might have arrived where I intended.”

Myrcella, Tommen and Jaime all share a look and the same amused chuckle. 

Brienne shakes her head in embarrassment. “Obviously I was incorrect. But when I got here, I decided I should rest and I sat, well, likely in this exact spot.

“It looked soft and inviting and there was no one else to be seen, or so I thought. With no one here, it was absolutely silent, that was the first thing I noticed. Not even the sounds of leaves or wind, it was _silent_ and when I turned, someone was right there.”

She points at the stump. “Sitting right there, looking as if he’d been there the entire time, waiting for me.”

“What did he look like?” Tommen eagerly asks.

“She’s getting there,” Myrcella quickly whispers back. 

“Shh,” Jaime tells them both, though he’s also soothing the faintly rousing child in his arms. His two smaller sons sigh and lie down to rest their heads on each of his knees, too drowsy to pay close attention to the story at hand. 

“He was odd looking, but what he said was odder,” Brienne says. “He knew my name without my saying it. He said, ‘Brienne of Tarth, I know why you are here.’”

A shiver runs through those that are paying attention, but Brienne lets loose a low, throaty laugh. “I wasn’t afraid. I wasn’t. There was nothing _dangerous_ about him, and he was so much smaller than I, even if he had a very smug air to him. If anything, I was annoyed by it.”

Her husband grins at hearing it and she makes a face at him, which merely brightens his smile. 

“So he said that and then he said, ‘You cannot have them. The gods say it is not time.’ When I asked what that meant, he said that I would see, but then I couldn’t see at all. It was as if the lights were doused throughout the entire forest. All I could hear was his voice telling me, ‘When all are ready, you will know each other for what you truly are.’”

She shudders and her voice dips low. “That is when it happened.”

The look on Brienne’s face is one of discomfort and unease and Jaime reaches out a hand for her to take. Her grip spasms in his and he clenches her tightly in return, unable to provide comfort for pain in the past, but a steady hand for her in the present. She looks to him with such affection in her eyes that Tommen and Myrcella bashfully avert their own. 

“When I came back to myself, as it were, he was still here. He stood up on the stump and pointed in that direction. ‘Go’, he said, ‘he needs you as you are’. I did not know what that meant, but when I looked back from where he pointed to, he was gone. There was nothing I could do but follow his direction and, well, you know how that went.”

A hush falls between them, broken only by birdsong overhead and gently rustling leaves.

“But what did he _look_ like?” Tommen asks again. 

“You won’t believe it,” Brienne warns him. “It was like something out of a story book.”

“Well suited to the tale, don’t you think?” Jaime muses and she laughs in response. 

“I suppose, yes,” Brienne agrees. Sighing, she shakes her head and says, “He was an imp, you could say. Small but fully formed as a man would otherwise be. He had a peculiar look to him, but perhaps familiar in retrospect?”

Something in the way she looks appraisingly between Tommen and Jaime makes her husband’s breath catch in his chest, for absolutely no reason he can comprehend. 

“He had hair as golden as yours,” Brienne says slowly. “But shot through with dark strands.”

Tommen and Myrcella both pout out their lower lips in confusion, but Jaime's chest begins to squeeze tightly and he looks down to be sure he is not clenching his daughter in response.

Brienne goes on, unaware of his condition. “He had a very clever smile. One could call it haughty, but that was nothing to his eyes. It was as if he’d seen everything about me and was amused by it. They didn’t match, I remembered thinking that was especially odd when I first saw him. One of was as green as any of yours, actually, but the other was-

“Black,” she and Jaime say together. 

She stops and looks to Jaime, cocking her head to one side, her mouth parting open in surprise. “Yes! How did you know? Have you seen him, too?”

“Not…” Jaime feels his eyes prickle and his sight turns blurry. He breathes in deeply and tells her, “Not for quite some time.”

“Papa?” Myrcella asks with a worried tone and Jaime shakes his head.

“I’m all right, only… very happy to hear this. That Brienne remembers,” he says hoarsely. It is Brienne’s turn to squeeze his hand and he accepts it most thankfully, giving her a significant look that says he will say more later to only her and she nods in silent assent. 

“I’ll say!” Tommen’s excited voice breaks between them. He parts open his book and pulls out a specially made charcoal. “Could you start from the beginning? Anything you can remember.”

Brienne’s shoulders shake forward in her laugh and Myrcella heartily sighs, for she knows what is coming. One rendition will not be enough for Tommen; he will scour the story for any and every detail and fill in anything that he feels will round it out and then ask for another turn, all over again.

Recognizing her restlessness, Jaime says, “I think we’ll eat here, after your brothers wake. If you’d like to take a walk about, we’ll wait for you.”

“Thank you,” Myrcella replies emphatically. She stands and leans toward Jaime to kiss his head and then turns to Brienne to do the same. Lingering near Brienne’s ear, she softly adds, “He was very clever to bring you to us. If I ever see the imp, I shall give him my thanks.”

“Give him mine as well,” Brienne whispers back. They share a smile and Myrcella grazes her brow with another swift kiss.

She leaves between the trees that Brienne indicated at the beginning of her story. There is no pathway to be found, not that Myrcella expected there would be. She traces her steps carefully and takes only occasional glances back; others would be more fearful, they would cling close to home and hearth, but if there is one thing Myrcella knows, it is that if the woods wanted to cause her harm, it would have done so long before. 

Instead it became her family’s refuge. It gave them Brienne and has never caused her fear aside from the days of the stag, wolf and lion - and even then there was something greater at work, Myrcella knows that now more than ever before. 

Nevertheless, the ten year old who learned that she might have been trapped in a tower for the sake of others, the child who craved freedom even more in response - she is still somewhere inside, wondering what happens when one travels to the furthest reaches of the woods.

“One day I’ll find out,” Myrcella says aloud. “Just you wait.”

Who could resist such a challenge?

She is wandering a newly found grove, where the trees open enough to let the sunlight stream in - her bow at the ready as she tracks a particularly well fed rabbit - when she hears it. _It_ is horse hooves clomping through the thick brush and a confused voice calling out for anyone to answer. 

Myrcella does not jump. She does not start. It has been a very long time since she’s felt such an impulse.

Safely disengaging her bow, she turns to where the sound comes from, unsurprised when a man enters the grove from the other side, as his approach was far from stealthy.

“Hello there!” he calls out after catching sight of her. He puts his hand to his brow, to protect his eyes from the blazing sunlight. It glints off his hair, catching the gleaming red tones in his dark curls. “I’ve gotten rather remarkably turned around, could you be so kind as to help me find my way?”

“You are well off the beaten track, Ser,” Myrcella replies, loud enough for him to hear.

“So it seems!” He laughs and she likes the sound of it, very much. “There was a small fellow back there, but nothing he said made sense. I have a good feeling about you, however.”

“As you should, I was raised in these woods and know it better than almost anyone,” Myrcella assures him. “Where is it you are going?”

The horse has slowed as the space between them vanishes. Oh, but he is a handsome one, and of good stock, Myrcella thinks. And the horse is quite impressive, too. 

She is smiling widely when he finally stops in place, still trying to block the sunlight with his palm. “I had no specific destination in mind, to be honest. I’ve come from King’s Landing, where my family was in attendance for the coronation of Prince Edric, first of his name. Well, King Edric now, I suppose.”

“I’d heard of something of the sort,” Myrcella says casually. 

“Yes, it was rather interesting, if trying,” the man replies. “Stuffy, formal affair, I was quite ready to run free once it was over. Thought I might take the long way home and, well, as you see, this is how that story has gone. Have pity on a lost soul, would you?”

Myrcella giggles softly and replies, “Of course, Ser, anything I can do to help. My family is near if my direction is insufficient.”

“Strange, but I do feel that I’m where I ought to be. Then again, I’m acting abominably, aren’t I? My mother would have my head if she saw me speaking to a lady like this. Forgive me,” he insists and swings off the horse, finally finding a bit of shade when he’s on steady ground. “I usually have far better manners than that, I imagine her glare would turn me to stone if she knew how rude I’d-”

He stops short just as he fully takes Myrcella in. She simply tips her head to one side and does nothing to conceal her amusement. 

“By the gods,” he breathes out. “Has anyone told you that you have the looks of the lost Baratheon princess?”

“I am neither a Baratheon or a princess,” Myrcella answers, her smile turning sly. “Nor am I lost, though it appears I have found you.”

“Yes,” he says, his face lighting up with untold promise. “It appears you have.”

🍃🌿🍃🌿🍃 

_Where once a young girl was at the mercy of a wolf, seven years later the tables turned rather neatly. And in the Young Wolf, Myrcella found her adventure at last._

_But that is another story._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to give my sincerest thanks to every single person who has commented and given a kudos for this story, it has been wonderful to hear how you've enjoyed it and I hope you know what a gift it is that you give me each and every time.
> 
> Eryi, at the risk of starting another _No! You!_ exchange, you are fucking _awesome_ and so supportive and enthusiastic and I won the gd exchange in getting you as my prompter. Thank you for being here for every chapter and I hope we continue to chat!
> 
> Luthien, you are the best beta ever and thank you for making time for me and letting me ramble on and on about this story. Fire, you are fully to blame for mentioning the tale of Snow White and Rose Red and _then_ suggesting the title and it is _perfect_ , you monster. As ever, my <3 to Slips, FF and Nire, thank you for being my friends and for your support throughout all of this. Lady C, welcome to the family!
> 
> I often listen to nature sounds as I write, but for this story I went looking for something with a ethereal twist and found this [Spotify Playlist](https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/2pAy7V3r5Tuw8wlxgYvHj1) by **libraryoflexi**. They likely have no idea who I am, but I am incredibly grateful for their curated list.
> 
> My love to you all! Thank you again!


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